


Dangerous Games

by pasteldanhowells



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU, Angst, Fluff, M/M, School, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 06:02:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11307219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasteldanhowells/pseuds/pasteldanhowells
Summary: Howell’s School of Abilities is a prestigious facility for children and teenagers with special powers. Dan and Phil both attend the school, but coming from rivaling families with opposing powers, they’re not exactly friends - their relationship is rather build on hostility and hatred. But what is going to happen to them when their final exam forces them to spend a week alone together?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic that I wrote with phancywork on tumblr for Phandom Big Bang.  
> I've changed my url (I do that quite a lot) so I thought I would post this on here so it's on one link.

Lunch at Howell’s School of Abilities is always a rather stressful matter. Having over five hundred teens of varying ages cramped together in a room would be chaotic enough as is, but the fact that each of these youngsters is gifted in some way or the other makes the whole thing that much more turbulent. The younger kids tend to be especially restless, still wound up from morning classes, which usually involve using and testing their abilities for hours on end.

For some mysterious reason (or, at least, a reason that the students had never managed to figure out) lunch is always short-staffed. Of course, there are a few teachers present to step-in if any serious disorder breaks out, but for the most part the students are expected to sort things out for themselves, which is really a terrible idea.

“Can someone pass me the fucking salt? I asked like five times already.”

“Sorry Dan,” Zoe says with a laugh and lifts her right hand, wiggling her fingers a little, making the salt shaker fly towards him. “I couldn’t hear you over all the noise.”

Dan is about to grab the salt shaker out of the air when suddenly a hand shoots out from next to his face, snatching it from right under his nose. He quickly looks up and is faced with Troye, who has the audacity to wink at him.

“Thanks Howell,” he cheekily says and blinks, disappearing into thin air.

Dan turns back around, slowly shaking his head.

“I hate this school so much,” he mumbles to himself and everyone at the table erupts into laughter. Louise nudges his shoulder.

“Daniel, that’s not the kind of talk we appreciate in this family,” she lectures him with a scarily spot-on impression of Dan’s mother, making everyone laugh even harder.

No one even flinches when Troye is suddenly back a minute later, putting the salt shaker down next to Dan’s plate only to disappear again. Dan sighs and finally seasons his food.

They fall back into the conversation they started at breakfast. Apparently the new teacher, who hasn’t shown signs of any ability all year, is able to control minds. No one has any first-hand accounts of that, but it has been keeping the rumour mill going for over a week now. They only get interrupted when loud cheers and yelling erupts from a few tables over.

“What’s happening?” Joe asks, craning his neck to be able to see.

Dan looks up, giving him a pretty clear view of the source of the commotion.

“Lester’s curly haired appendage is at it again.”

Everyone looks over to the table where Phil, Chris, Jack and PJ usually sit. A small crowd of younger students has gathered there, all looking very excited. It looks like Phil, Chris and Jack are sitting with some weird wolf-man hybrid, and then with their headmaster (making the crowd squeal), and then with PJ again. Everyone is yelling out requests and Dan turns back to his food, feeling annoyed.

“Bloody shifters,” he grumbles.

“I don’t know,” Alfie says. “It’s so rare and a pretty cool ability, don’t you think? Remember that epic prank he pulled a few years ago.”

Dan sighs. That week is not something he likes to reminisce about. Not only does he remember the prank itself, he also very clearly remembers being the butt of the joke. If he doesn’t change the topic fast, someone is going to start recounting the whole thing, and that’s not something he really wants.

“So, exams are coming up.” He says hastily.

Everyone groans.

“Really, Dan?” Joe asks. “That’s the topic of conversation you want to go on about right now? I don’t even want to think about exams.”

Dan shrugs, drinking the last of his water.

“I bet he’s only doing it so we don’t talk about the thing again,” Louise laughs, and Dan curses silently. “Sorry, Dan, but we can never let this go.”

“He is indeed thinking about that,” Joe chimes in and Dan curses him silently too. He hates having a mind reader in his group of friends. “He doesn’t want us to-”

Thankfully for Dan, Joe is interrupted by the shrill bell announcing that they have fifteen minutes until afternoon classes start, and Dan thanks every deity he can think of for that timely disruption.

“Time for class,” Dan says, winking at Louise. “I’ll be there in a minute, I left my bag in my room.”

He gets up from the table and slips past the others, finally getting out of the lunch room. The hallway is getting more and more crowded every second and it takes a good ten minutes until he’s actually in his room.

The plan was to grab his bag and then head back out, but of course he ends up wasting his time with something stupid and by the time he leaves his room he’s already ten minutes late for Maths. He hurriedly makes his way down the hallway, without really paying attention to where he’s going. Just as he’s turning a corner he bumps straight into someone, and they both fall to the floor, books and bags scattering everywhere.

“Bloody hell,” Dan groans, pushing himself up. “Are you o- Lester.”

The other boy looks up and glares as soon as he sees who is sitting in front of him.

“Howell.”

“Of all the people I could have run into, it had to be you. Why don’t you look where you’re going next time?” Dan snaps before reaching over and grabbing his stuff.

“If I remember correctly… you’re the one who had his eyes glued to the ground.”

“Yeah, and I wish I could have stayed like that, because then I wouldn’t have had to see your ugly face,” Dan smirks and they both finally get up, eyeing each other with a considerable amount of contempt. Phil smirks at him, which is more infuriating than it has any right to be.

“Stay out of my way,” Dan hisses; he can feel his fingertips tingle with heat. He almost wishes Phil would give him one reason, one good reason to burn that grin right of his face.

“And if I don’t?”

“Listen, you little sh-,” Dan starts, but is interrupted by a third voice. They both don’t even need to look around, because of course they would get caught by their History teacher. She makes sneaking around school or doing anything forbidden incredibly hard with her seeming omnipresence.

“Enough, boys! Get to class this instant,” the bodiless voice reprimands them, now sounding closer. They both nod and shoulder their bags, starting to walk away next to each other.

“Watch yourself next time, Howell,” Phil hisses under his breath as soon as they turn the next corner. He shoves him hard and Dan shudders at the icy feeling of Phil’s fingers on his arm.

“Boys, I’m still here,” their History teacher says from behind them, now sounding considerably more annoyed. “Get to class now, or so help me God.”

They get to Maths over twenty minutes late. Their teacher doesn’t say much, just shakes his head at the two of them and tells them to sit down. Dan suspects he’s afraid of him and the power his last name holds, but he’s not going to complain about that now.

“What took you so long?” Louise whispers as Dan sits down next to her. “And why did you get here with Phil, of all people?”

Dan rolls his eyes at the sudden interrogation.

“We ran into each other.”

“You ran into each other? Now that would have been interesting to see.”

“It wasn’t interesting, it was annoying,” Dan mumbles. “Lester is the reason why I’m so late.”

“Sure, always got to blame it on someone else.”

“Ms Pentland, quiet now,” their teacher calls.

Louise looks down at her book and Dan sighs, relaxing into his chair, glancing up at the clock.

Maths is a total drag, and Dan is so very glad that the next thing in their schedule is combat training. Now that the days are getting a bit warmer, at least for British standards, they even get to train outside.

Everyone changes into gym clothes and meets up on the front lawn where Mrs Allen has prepared some equipment for them to train with.

This class is technically for people with physical powers to learn to use them for battle, but everyone with mental powers is ordered to partake as well, training with knives or other weapons. It is more of a relict from a time where the gifted community was always preparing for war with the rest of the human race, but seeing that Howell’s School of Abilities is a place of tradition, it is still one of their most important and valued classes.

“Today I am going to pair you up and see where different combinations get us. But the warm-up comes first,” Mrs Allen announces, causing a few of them, including Dan, to groan. “Two laps around the school. Whoever gets back first is allowed to choose their opponent.”

“Well, I’m back,” Emma shouts from the back and everyone rolls their eyes. That’s something that happens every lesson, and Mrs Allen grins, just as she does every time.

“Nice, Emma. Help me with this equipment while everyone without superior speed gets going.”

There are a few more groans, but slowly the whole class is starting to move and break into a light jog around the building. Dan is next to Louise, not trying all that hard. He doesn’t like running and he doesn’t see why he needs to warm up anyway; he’s got enough heat for all of them combined.

After everyone finishes their laps around the building Mrs Allen has them doing stretches, before distributing some training knives to everyone with non-offensive abilities. Louise waves around her two dull knives under Dan’s nose and he smiles at her before inhaling deeply and letting small flames come out of his nose with his next exhale. He feels the power surge through him, it makes him relaxed and loose and feel at ease and he is so ready to kick some serious ass.

“I see Mr Howell is ready for this,” Mrs Allen says. “I’ll pair you up with Troye for now.”

Dan nods at her and strolls over to Troye while she continues pairing people up.

“You were pretty cheeky at lunch today,” Dan remarks quietly.

Troye only grins at him, flexing his fingers, and Dan can already tell that this is going to be fun. Whilst they aren’t exactly friends, they like each other well enough, and Troye is strong, so Dan is not going to have to hold back. At least, not too much.

Mrs Allen spaces each pair out over the big lawn.

“I’d like to remind everyone that this is a training exercise, so please refrain from hurting each other. We’ve done this often enough that everyone should be familiar with what will and what won’t be accepted in my class. Please begin.”

Suddenly Troye is gone and Dan curses under his breath. He wasn’t ready yet. He spins around just in time to see Troye appear again. The other boy is hitting his arm.

“You’re it,” he taunts, and before Dan can even raise his hand, he’s gone again.

“Crap,” Dan mumbles, flames forming at his fingertips. When Troye appears this time, he’s ready, and shoots a small fireball at his chest that he’s sure is going to hit him. Yet, Troye is too fast, and the fireball hits nothing but thin air as he disappears again.

This happens a few more times, and Dan is slowly starting to get fed up with the teleporting. He finally concentrates fully, feeling heat flood every nerve ending in his body. His vision starts to flicker as he brings up his own body temperature. He knows that he is emitting waves of heat, probably burning the grass around his feet. Troye appears in front of him again, but before he can even reach out to hit Dan’s arm, this time the heat hits him and he flinches back, stumbling and losing his balance. He falls backwards into the grass and looks up at Dan, jaw dropping a little from the shock. Dan knows he looks terrifying; he’s watched himself do this in a mirror once. He lifts his hand, flames dancing in his palm, licking at his skin.

The fireball would have hit any other person, but Troye gains his composure in time to blink just at the right moment, and is gone again. The flames hit the grass and start feeding off of it until Mrs Allen intervenes. She holds up her hand towards Dan and he can feel himself getting immobilized on the spot, unable to move as he watches her every move. Mrs Allen steps on the flames until they extinguish and Dan can slowly feel the immense heat dissipate from his body.

She slowly lowers her hand, and Dan can move his body again. Troye appears next to him, out of breath but grinning.

“That was very good, you two,” Mrs Allen says with a smile. “But I think Mr Howell needs to cool off a little and I know just the man for the job.”

She turns around to the other fighting pairs. Dan closes his eyes for a second, already knowing exactly what she’s going to do, but dreading it nonetheless.

“Mr Lester,” she calls out to Phil who is currently being held down by multiple Tylers. “You’ll be switching partners with Mr Sivan.”

All but one of the Tylers disappear and the remaining figure helps Phil to his feet. Phil makes his way over to them, dodging one of the rocks Chris has just thrown at Jack.

“See you, Dan,” Troye says with a grin and starts walking towards Tyler, high-fiving Phil as he passes him.

Dan doesn’t feel like answering as he senses the heat return to his body at the mere sight of Phil’s crooked grin.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Mrs Allen calls before going over to Joe (probably to correct the terrible way in which he is holding his knives). “And remember that it’s a training exercise!”

“Well, Howell.”

“Lester.”

They don’t waste any time and slowly start walking circles around each other, assessing every move the other person makes. Phil’s lips are turning blue, his face getting even paler than usual.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like a corpse when you do that?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like a moron in general?” Phil retorts, his breath condensing in front of his mouth.

Dan snorts, smoke coming out of his nostrils. Without even a second thought, he throws a wild fireball at Phil, who dodges it easily. Phil grins at him.

“Is that all you can do?”

Dan feels the anger flood his brain and he doesn’t try to stop it. He knows it’s going to fuel his power, and he can feel his body going hot again.

“That can’t be your only party trick,” Phil teases, ice crystals forming all over his arms and hands.

They stare at each other for a long moment, both tense. Icy daggers take shape in Phil’s palms, sharp and long and perhaps a little threatening, and Dan knows he needs to act quickly.

“I’ll wipe that grin off your face,” he hisses, which makes Phil smirk even wider.

“I’d like to see you try.”

Those words finally set Dan off, and he runs towards Phil who is raising his hands, prepared for the collision.

————————————————————————————————— 

“Why did you have to fight so hard?” Louise whispers.

She’s kneeling next to him, her hands hovering over a messy looking wound on his leg. Her fingers are emitting a soft golden glow and the pain is fading almost immediately. Dan has seen it countless times, but he still thinks it’s amazing, and he would watch his skin grow back with fascination if he wasn’t so busy with being angry at Phil.

“That was totally his fault!”

He’s glaring over at Phil who is sitting next to him in the grass, inspecting a minor burn on his right arm.

“I apologized,” Phil mumbles, his patience clearly wearing thin. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but you burnt me too, okay?”

“Well, you’re lucky it’s only your arm that got burnt.”

“Leave it, Mr Howell,” Mrs Allen’s voice sounds behind them. “Ms Pentland, can you come over and look at Ms Sugg’s shoulder after you’re done with these two?”

Louise nods, not looking up from Dan’s arm.

————————————————————————————————— 

Dan sighs as he walks into the library. He absolutely hates studying, but he also knows that it is of grave importance that he does as much of it as he possibly can. He needs to do well in the upcoming exams - the ones he needs to do well in order to graduate. Sure, he bunks off some of his classes and sometimes barely pays attention, but he’s still pretty smart and confident in his abilities.

He looks around for somewhere to sit. “Are you kidding me?” Dan mutters under his breath when he sees that the library is pretty much full, and the only open table is one with Phil Lester sitting at it. He can feel the residual anger bubbling in his stomach about what happened earlier this week during combat training, and sitting with Phil is the last thing he wants to do. Still, he needs to study, so he decides to suck it up and get it over with. This is the only free period he has to study.

Dan walks over to the History section and gets two books he thinks he might need to help him with the exam, before walking over to the table and sitting down across from Phil.

Phil glances up and rolls his eyes when he sees Dan, the last person he wants to see.

“You again?” He spits, keeping his voice down.

Dan sighs. “I’m not here to argue with you. I’m here to study, so zip it and leave me alone,” he growls back quietly.

“You’re still upset about what happened, aren’t you?”

“What do you think?” Dan mumbles, as he opens one of his books.

“I apologized, didn’t I?” Phil asks, raising his eyebrows.

“You don’t know the meaning of zip it, do you?”

“Well, you should know by now that-” Phil starts, but gets interrupted by their librarian shushing him pointedly.

Dan sighs, satisfied that someone shut Phil up and pulls up his notebook. He starts to scribble down facts and dates. When he looks up a few minutes later Phil is watching him, biting his lip.

“Can I help you?” Dan asks.

“N-no, not at all,” Phil replies a bit too fast, shaking his head before looking down at his book. Dan wants to write it off as stupid Phil behaviour and go back to his studies, but gets interrupted by someone giggling at the next table.

“What are you laughing about, Sugg?” Phil hisses, and Dan watches Joe with annoyed interest.

“You and your thoughts, Lester. Pretty interesting,” Joe replies. Dan thinks he can see a blush creep up Phil’s pale cheeks.

“Stop reading my thoughts,” Phil snaps at Joe.

“Not my fault, mate.”

“Would you two do me a favour and shut up?” Dan asks. At this rate he’s not going to get anything done.

“Well, you’d be interested to know that you’ve been in Phil’s thoughts recently.”

“Joe!” Phil hisses. Dan steals a glance, and notices that the pages of Phil’s book are covered in frost under his fingers.

“What?” Dan asks, now way more invested in the conversation. “Why were you thinking about me?”

“They were pretty interesting thoughts too. I would even say-”

“Shut up, Sugg. It’s none of your business,” Phil interrupts him and his breath is starting to condense, eyes bluer than ever.

“Clearly it is some of my business though, since you were thinking about me,” Dan mumbles.

“I wasn’t thinking about you! I’d be mental if I ever did that,” Phil replies and Dan rolls his eyes.

“Oh please, you already are mental, aren’t you, Lester?”

“Take that back right now Howell,” Phil says, his voice getting louder.

“Nope, I don’t think I will,” Dan shakes his head.

“God, you’re so bloody immature all the time,” Phil sighs in frustration.

“Lester! Howell! Out! Right now! I will not have this kind of noise in my library,” the librarian calls, walking towards them.

“But Joe was talking too!” Dan exclaims, standing up at the same time with Phil.

“We can make this a detention if you’d like,” he warns them.

Dan glares at Phil before grabbing his stuff and storms out of the library. “Thanks a lot.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Phil says, having followed Dan.

“I need to study! You’re the one who kept talking and got us in trouble” Dan snaps.

“You were talking too, it wasn’t just me,” Phil mumbles.

“God, I cannot wait to leave this school so I never have to see you again,” Dan shakes his head.

“I could say the same thing for you. You’re such a prick,” Phil retorts.

“Then just stay away from me!” Dan hisses before turning on his heel and storming away.

————————————————————————————————— 

The weeks left until they have to take their first exam pass by way too quickly. Dan is looking forward to finally getting out of school, but he’s also feeling nervous about the exam, about the future, and he’s already starting to get nostalgic, spending more time than ever with Jack and Louise. It’s not like he will never see his friends again after they all graduate, but it’s going to be different then, and Dan is not good with change.

————————————————————————————————— 

The evening before the History exam is mostly spend in Zoe’s room, everyone sitting on the floor, books and notes spread out everywhere.

“1978,” Joe says, in answer to a question Jack has just quizzed Zoe on.

“Mind reading doesn’t count as studying, Joe,” Zoe complains. “You should really try to study on your own. You know you have to take the exam in a separate room anyway.”

“Oh, the burden of the mighty and superiorly gifted,” Joe jokes before going back to his notes.

Dan is curled up on Zoe’s bed, eyes glued to his book as he tries to remember all the dates and repeat them in his head. He’s feeling confident about the exam right now, but he knows that he’ll inevitably get nervous in the morning and he’s already dreading the headache that’s sure to set in right before he has to take the exam.

Two hours later and he’s close to falling asleep in Zoe’s bed. It’s warm and comfortable and Louise is settled in with her head resting on his chest. His arm is laying across Joe’s belly and he’s pretty sure Zoe is asleep somewhere to their feet. He looks over and Jack is sitting cross-legged on the floor, back to the wall and Dan is sure he’s fast asleep. Alfie has his head in Jack’s lap and Dan wishes he could reach his phone, because that would make excellent blackmail material.

“Guys,” he says. “We shouldn’t go to sleep like this, we’ll all feel terrible in the morning.”

Louise mumbles something into his shirt and Joe swats at him weakly.

“Shut up, Howell,” Alfie says from across the room and Dan wants to move, willing himself to just get up, but his limbs are tired and his eyelids are heavy and he’s so, so comfortable.

“Just go to sleep,” Louise whispers, but Dan can barely hear her anymore.

————————————————————————————————— 

Zoe wakes them up sometime around half past six and, as predicted, they all feel groggy and achy and entirely unprepared for having to take an exam in a few hours.

“Come on,” Zoe says, pulling on Dan who is groaning and complaining, refusing to open his eyes. “Get up, take a shower, get dressed. Go, go, go!”

It takes them another half an hour to all find the strength to move out of their now uncomfortable positions.

“See you at breakfast,” Dan mumbles, stifling a yawn and waving at the others before closing the door behind him.

The hours until the exam go by in a blur and before Dan knows it he’s in front of the vaulted room in which all important exams are conducted. The expected headache and stomachache have set in, but he’s trying to do some very last minute studying, so he’s sitting on the floor, notebook in his lap. He has difficulty concentrating though, because the headache is very distracting. Dan sighs and massages his temples.

“You okay?” Someone asks and Dan looks up, only to find Phil standing above him.

“What do you care?” Dan spits out. “Leave me alone for once.”

Phil shrugs. “Just wanted to tell you that everyone else has gone in already. You must have missed it while you were sitting here, being a little bitch.”

Dan swears under his breath and throws his notebook into his bag before maybe a bit too quickly getting up from the floor. His vision goes dark for the fraction of a second and he stumbles, but suddenly Phil’s hand is on his arm, keeping him up.

“You sure you’re okay?” Phil asks and Dan shakes off his hand, not bothering to thank or even acknowledge him.

They enter the room side by side and before they go off to the two last unoccupied tables, Phil nudges his shoulder.

“You got this.”

Dan is too confused to come up with a clever retort, so he just goes over to his table. For the next few minutes he can’t even concentrate, partly due to his headache and partly due to Phil’s weird behaviour. He even misses their teacher putting down his exam in front of him.

Dan only shakes himself out of it when they are told to turn over their papers and start. He silently curses himself. It was probably Phil’s plan all along to confuse Dan so much that he puts down a wrong answer or something. Well, Phil will have to do better than that, Dan thinks to himself as he sees the first question and smiles to himself because it’s something he went over with Louise not twelve hours ago.

He’s got this.

————————————————————————————————— 

When they get their results for all the written exams, everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief. No one has failed any of the exams and everyone in Dan’s group has managed to get relatively good grades. Dan can’t help but brag a little about his straight As, but the others don’t seem to be too annoyed by it.

Now that the practical exam is coming up, Dan starts to get nervous. He just hopes that he’s going to get paired with someone that he’s able to get along with and that has somewhat compatible powers to his. So, really, anyone that isn’t Phil Lester.

“Can you believe we all passed?” Zoe squeals excitedly as they leave the classroom.

“Guess that study session at yours the other night really paid off,” Louise adds.

“How about we celebrate? Tonight in my room?” Zoe asks.

Dan nods.

“I’m in,” he says, and everyone else nods in agreement.

“Let’s invite some of the other people too,” Jack says. Dan rolls his eyes.

“Yeah,” Joe chimes in. “Maybe Phil and his friends, or Troye and Tyler.”

Dan shrugs.“As long as I don’t have to speak to Lester, I don’t care if he’s invited or not,.”

“Boys,” Louise mumbles, shaking her head. “Are you two ever going to stop rivaling with each other? You’re about to graduate and you still argue over silly things.”

“I don’t know. He was being really weird during the history exam, like… he was being nice?”

“Being nice isn’t weird, Dan,” Louise laughs at how ridiculous Dan sounds, and Dan roll his eyes. “Let’s get to class. We’re going to find out who our partners are today, so this should be interesting. Who are you hoping for Dan?”

“I don’t know. Anyone but-”

“Phil Lester,” Louise and Joe say at the same time.

“Am I really that predictable?”

“Yeah, you actually are,” Louise replies.

“Great,” Dan murmurs.

They enter the classroom together and all walk towards their seats. Dan glances over and sees Phil already sitting in his seat, being unusually quiet.

“Someone got a little crush on Lester?” Joe whispers as he walks past Dan.

“Yeah, right… As if,” Dan snaps.

“Alright guys,” Mr Green says after everyone has taken their seats.

“Do we get to find out who our partners are?” Louise asks, excitement in her voice.

“The pairings for the final exam will be announced later today, Ms Pentland,” Mr Green answers, making the entire class groan. “I will put up the paper with the pairing on the door of my office at 5pm.”

“We’ll talk about the exam today and we-” Joe starts, but Mr Green interrupts him before he could finish.

“We’ve talked about this before, Joe, I’m the one teaching the class. Not you.”

“Sorry about that,” Joe giggles.

“But Mr Sugg is correct. You’re all aware of how important this exam is going to be, right? It will determine if you graduate from this school or stay for another year. It’s a week-long process that will determine how well you are able to use your powers outside of school and how you use them together with other people.”

“The exam is going to take a week?” Zoe asks.

“For some of you, most likely. Unless maybe you have superspeed,” Mr Green answers, winking in Emma’s direction.

“Well,” she says with a grin on her face. “This will be a piece of cake then.”

“Anyway,” Mr Green continues. “I’m going to hand out the rules and everything you need to know about the exam now. I want you to read it carefully. I also need to you to sign the attached form, stating that you understand everything that is going to happen and that the school is not actionable for any injuries you contract during the exam process.”

Everyone just kind of stares as Mr Green starts handing out stacks of papers. They all seem to be a bit in shock about how formal the school is going about this exam.

“If you don’t have any questions, I’ll dismiss you early today. Please hand in your signed forms two days from now. If you have any questions later, feel free to seek me out. You all know where to find me.”

The time until five pm seems to go by unusually slow. Zoe and Joe busy themselves with party preparations and the others go outside and sit down on the lawn in the patio to look over the rules for the exam. They all already know quite a bit about it because the exam has been held in a similar way for the past hundreds and hundreds of years, but being faced with it themselves is still something different.

“This is so outdated,” Jack says, flipping through his papers. “Also, it seems like a huge invasion of privacy.”

“Well, it’s tradition,” Dan just says.

“But listen to this,” Alfie says and starts reading. “Participants will be observed around the clock through cameras and microphones placed in the arena.”

“What the hell?”

“Well, it says here that it’s for our own protection, so the teachers can intervene if someone is in life-threatening danger.”

“Okay, so we’ll be in this huge closed-off arena for a week with nothing but our gym clothes and a few little knives, trying to defend ourselves against unknown enemies and trying to survive?” Joe asks. “How is that even applicable to the real world anymore? 1650 called and not even they want that exam back.”

“It’s tradition,” Dan just repeats because he’s heard stories about the exam since he was young, so it all seems natural to him.

Everyone eventually goes to get some coffee and only Dan and Louise stay on the lawn.

At two minutes to five she taps him on the shoulder.

“Let’s go,” she says and they make their way over to Mr Green’s office.

The corridor is crowded, everyone pushing towards the door with the paper hanging on it. Louise gets there first while Dan is still stuck behind Tyler and Troye.

“Who do you have?” He asks her. “Come on Oakley, move.”

“Oh, looks like I’m paired with Jack. This should be- oh.”

Louise bites her lip, looking up at Dan who’s finally standing next to her.

“What?” Dan asks with raised eyebrows. “What is it?”

“Have a look for yourself.”

“No,” Dan whispers when he finally finds his own name on the list. “No, no, no.”

He takes a step backwards, promptly bumping into someone, but ignoring their protests.

“I can’t believe it. This isn’t happening.”

“Come on, Dan. I bet-”

“No, Louise. I’ll go talk to my granddad, I’ll do whatever it takes to get this changed.”

Dan turns away, not listening to her protests. He pushes back through the crowd of his classmates, ignoring their annoyed remarks. Behind him he hears a familiar voice.

“I guess he’s not happy with this, is he?” Phil asks, sounding somewhat defeated and that tone makes Dan’s fingertips tingle with heat.

“Sorry, Phil,” Louise answers and Dan snorts, finally pushing past Chris and PJ and starts to make his way towards the headmaster’s office.

————————————————————————————————— 

The party is already in full swing when Dan arrives. He’s spent quite some time arguing with his grandfather and then a few hours of blissful isolation in his room, blasting music on full volume and shutting the outside world out.

“There you are,” Zoe says, pressings a glass into his hand.

“What is this?” He asks, eyeing the liquid in question suspiciously.

“Jack and Coke,” she replies. “Thought you needed it. Louise said you were pretty upset earlier.”

“Yeah.”

“What did Professor Howell say?”

“I have to stick with Lester as my partner,” he replies, grimacing and taking a much needed sip from his drink. He barely holds back a cough when it burns the back of his throat. “Holy hell, Zoe, is that nine parts Jack and one part Coke or something?”

Zoe laughs a little, but doesn’t comment. Someone, most likely Alfie, calls her name from behind them. She smiles softly and gently pats him on the arm.

“Have fun, honey,” she says before walking away.

Dan takes another sip from his drink and looks around the room. While the rooms at their school are relatively big and luxurious, it’s still a dorm room and so it’s packed with people. This is one of the times where Dan is grateful that he’s so tall and can see over everyone’s head, as he’s able to spy Jack and Louise at the other end of the room with ease.

“Hey,” he greets them when he’s finally managed to make his way over to them.

“Hey Dan,” Louise says carefully. “How are you now?”

Dan just shrugs, busying himself with his drink. He’s drinking way too fast and being an absolute lightweight, he already feeling the buzz of alcohol rushing through his blood.

“Can you switch partners?”

“Nope.”

“Well, maybe it would be good for the two of you if-,” she starts, but gets interrupted by Jack tapping her on the arm.

“Speak of the devil!”

Dan turns around and sees Phil standing in the door, looking around awkwardly. He’s alone as far as Dan can see. Their eyes meet for the briefest second and Dan sneers at Phil before turning back to Louise and Jack.

“Why do you have to be so rude?” Louise asks. “You’ll be evaluated on teamwork, too, you know. So maybe you should just try to get along.”

“I’m not the one who’s rude,” Dan replies, even though he knows that that’s probably not true. He empties his glass and looks around for the table with the alcohol. “But he’s a Lester, Lou. They are not good people.”

“Dan,” Jack finally pitches in. “Just because your families have some weird feud going on doesn’t mean you two have to continue it. You need to get your act together if you want to pass this- oh… Phil is coming over here.”

“We’ll just… go…” Louise says, and before Dan can protest she takes Jack by the arm and pulls him away.

“Howell,” Phil says, keeping a completely straight face.

“Lester,” Dan retorts, wishing that his voice sounded as collected as Phil’s. His tongue is feeling loose and he really hopes he doesn’t say anything he’ll regret.

“Well, what do we have here?” Joe seems to have appeared out of nowhere and Dan can hear that he’s drunk. “The dream team!”

Phil takes a step back, eyeing Joe carefully. His eyes dart around the room and Dan thinks he can see some kind of panic on his face.

“Don’t worry, Phil,” Joe slurs and puts his arm around Phil. “I won’t tell anyone your little secret.”

Dan raises an eyebrow.

“Secret?”

“I really shouldn’t have come tonight,” Phil says, obviously struggling to keep a calm exterior. “I should go, PJ and Chris are waiting and… yeah…”

“Wow, that sounded so lame, Lester,” Dan snorts, watching Phil struggle to get Joe off of him.

“Aw, you’re so mean,” Joe comments, finally letting go of Phil. “You’re hurting little Ph-”

“Okay,” Phil interrupts him. “I’ll leave now. Maybe you should take a walk to clear your head, Joe.” With that, Phil turns around and practically flees the room.

“What was that all about?” Dan asks Joe, who’s having a bit of a giggle fit.

“Nothing,” he manages to get out, before hiccupping right into Dan’s face.

“Wow,” Dan mumbles and shakes his head. “I am not drunk enough to deal with this right now.”

He leaves the giggling Joe standing there and embarks on his quest to obtain another drink from somewhere in this room.

————————————————————————————————— 

Two weeks later all of the students are boarding a bus that’s going to get them to Scotland and, consequently, to the arena that the exam is being held in.

To say that Dan is nervous is really an understatement. He has always been under a lot of pressure to perform well in school because of his family running the entire thing, and this exam carries extra weight for him because it will determine if he graduates this summer. No Howell has ever failed the exam, and he really doesn’t want to be the one to break that tradition.

Luckily, Mrs Allen had organized a few extra voluntary lessons in combat and survival training that he had gladly attended and that managed to make him feel a little calmer about this entire ordeal.

“Everybody on the bus!” Mr Green shouts over the loud chatter of the students. “Please sit next to your partner.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Dan sighs. “I don’t want to sit next to Lester.”

“Well, I don’t want to sit next to you either, Howell, so I guess we’re both disappointed,” Phil hisses in his ear, making Dan jump a little. Phil doesn’t linger, shoving past him and getting onto the bus.

Dan rolls his eyes. The next few hours are going to be just great.

“It’s only for a couple of hours,” Louise says softly, hoping to calm Dan down. She, and others, really don’t want to listen to Dan bicker with Phil the entire bus ride.

“Yeah, and then I’ll have to spend a whole week with him,” Dan groans.

Just the thought of having to spend an entire week with Phil Lester makes Dan want to die on the inside. He can barely spend five minutes with him without wanting to claw his throat out, so how on earth are they both going to survive the next week?

“I’m sure you’re going to be just fine.”

“I’m just glad I brought my iPod,” Dan murmurs before getting onto the bus.

Louise rolls her eyes before following him onto the bus. She sits across from him with her partner, Jack.

“How come you two get to be partners? You’re like… friends!” Dan mumbles bitterly as Phil sits down next to him. Phil bites his lips, looking almost a little hurt, but doesn’t say anything.

“Maybe there’s a reason you two were put together,” Jack suggests with a shrug.

Dan rolls his eyes and pulls out his iPod from his bag.

“Enough Dan, you’re acting like a child now… this exam is serious,” Louise snaps.

“Okay mother,” Dan mumbles, frustrated with himself and the whole situation.

“How do you put up with him, Louise?” Phil asks, rolling his eyes.

“With a lot of patience,” Louise replies, smirking when she sees the look on Dan’s face.

“Nobody asked for your opinion, Lester,” Dan snaps angrily.

“And your point is?” Phil asks, raising his eyebrows as he looks over to Dan.

“This is going to be a long bus ride,” Jack says quietly.

“You can say that again,” Zoe chimes in from behind Louise.

“Is everybody here?” Mr Green asks as he steps onto the bus, which is now full of students.

“Emma isn’t here yet!” Luke shouts, but not a second later, Emma appears on the bus.

“Sorry I’m late. Had to use the bathroom before we left,” Emma says, slightly out of breath before sitting down in her seat.

“Wow. Too much information there Emma,” Dan says teasingly.

“Great, we’re all here now. I see half of you have already pulled out your electronics, but just remember that those will be taken away while you’re in the arena,” Mr Green says, making half the students groan even though everyone is aware of that fact already. “Don’t worry. You’ll get them back if you get out.”

“If?” Zoe asks, sounding slightly alarmed and Mr Green chuckles.

“When you get out. Sorry, I just like seeing you all get nervous about this. Remember that we’ll have eyes on you the entire time and if any of you get in serious danger we’ll be there to pull you out. That goes for being fatally or life-threateningly injured or dying of thirst.” He says, his tone perhaps a little too cheery for the topic.

A few hours into the bus ride Dan is starting to get bored. Most of the students are either sleeping or listening to music. Dan mentally kicks himself for not bringing at least one of the survival guides because if he had, he could get some last minute info into his brain. He sighs quietly and looks up at the ceiling, but jumps when he feels someone nudge him. He looks over and rolls his eyes when he sees Phil staring at him… again.

“Fuck off.”

“Come on Dan, we’re almost there. We need to talk about what we’re going to do,” Phil says quietly, not wanting to disturb the others as some were trying to get some last minute studying in.

“We’ll talk when we get into the bloody arena.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little silly for us to be arguing like this?”

“What are you on about?” Dan groans, as he can already feel a headache coming on.

“We’re going to have to work together, whether we like it or not. I don’t want to fail this because we’re too busy arguing with each other,” Phil answers, voice growing a little impatient.

“Look, I don’t like you… and that’s that,” Dan snaps.

“Why do you have to be so stubborn?” Phil asks, rolling his eyes.

“Why do you have to be so bloody annoying?” Dan retorts.

“Well excuse me for actually wanting to pass the exam.”

“I’ve been working my ass off for a month, studying and doing all the assignments… so don’t you dare think for one second that I don’t want to pass this exam.”

“Well it seems like you’re more focused on this family rivalry than working together,” Phil says, shrugging his shoulders afterwards.

“Oi, will you two stop bickering for one bloody second?” Jack says, looking at them sternly.

Dan rolls his eyes and turns slightly so that he isn’t facing Phil anymore. Phil sighs and glances up, locking eyes with Louise.

“Sorry,” Louise mouths to Phil, knowing Phil was getting tired of arguing with Dan.

This is going to be the longest week of Dan’s life, and he can’t wait for it to be over with.

————————————————————————————————— 

They spend the night at a hostel near the arena.

Dan can’t sleep. He knows he should rest, enjoy the last night with a warm dinner in his belly and not having to be on the constant look out for danger, but he just can’t.

He would never admit to anyone else that he’s scared, but he can just about admit it to himself. It’s not even that he’s afraid of getting injured, but he’s fucking scared of failing, of being a failure.

He stares up at the dark ceiling, trying to will his body into falling asleep, but eventually he just gives up and pulls out his phone to check his social media.

————————————————————————————————— 

The teachers let them dig in at breakfast before collecting all their electronics and telling them to change into the clothes they had received specifically for this exam. They had gotten tight thermal clothing, long at the legs and arms. It’s good against insect bites, Dan knows that, but they look ridiculous. Everyone also has a practical raincoat and a hunting knife.

People with non-physical abilities, like Joe, receive a wider arsenal of weapons, but it’s still not a lot, considering that they will be on their own in an unknown wilderness for the next week.

Every group receives a backpack with one empty water bottle and a few feet of good quality rope.

————————————————————————————————— 

When the bus approaches the arena everyone is practically pressed against the window. It’s massive to say the least. It’s encompassed by a metal structure, about ten feet high. Above that seems to be nothing, but a slight flimmering in the air, but Dan’s grandfather has told him that there’s a forcefield over the entire arena to make it possible to temperature control it.

“We will drive around the arena, dropping off the groups one after another at your designated gates. It should take us a while to reach every gate, so the first groups shouldn’t get impatient. When the time has come a loud noise will sound from the speakers of your gate. From that point on you have five minutes to get ready before the gates open and the exam officially begins,” Mrs Allen explains.

Dan and Phil get dropped off at the fourth gate.

“Good luck, boys,” Mr Green says, before sending them off the bus. It’s a bright and sunny day and Phil lets himself fall down into the grass.

“What are you doing?”

“Enjoying the peace while it lasts, you know… before the madness starts,” Phil answers, closing his eyes against the sun. “You should try to relax as well. No need to get worked up now.”

Dan is practically the definition of worked up at this point, but after about ten minutes of pacing he sits down next to Phil. Dan chews on his bottom lip nervously and looks around until he feels Phil’s cold fingers on his hand.

“Calm down, okay.”

Dan draws his hand back, the spot still feeling icy even after Phil isn’t touching him anymore and snorts.

“What do you think I’m trying to do right now,” he snaps and Phil sighs, closing his eyes again.

Dan looks at Phil, who gives off an image of complete relaxation. Dan’s gaze wanders from Phil’s pale neck and his lips over his beak-like nose and the purple veins on his closed eyelids to his black hair that Dan knows he dyes.

“You know I can feel you staring at me, right?” Phil asks and Dan hastily averts his eyes.

“You’re imagining things, Lester,” he snaps, and busies himself by letting the straps of their backpack run through his fingers.

He’s not sure how long they’re sitting and lying in the grass, but if feels like an eternity. The loud noise that suddenly comes from the speakers above their gate, startles him and he immediately feels his heart rate picking up.

“Okay,” Phil says, sitting up and runs his fingers through his fringe. “Do you want to take the backpack first?”

“Okay,” Dan says, too nervous to even start to bicker about that.

They both get up and Dan shoulders the backpack. Phil stretches and Dan flexes his fingers, feeling the heat rush through his body. Next to him Phil stands there with stretched out palms, ice crystals forming in his hands, starting to cling to each other and grow longer until they take the rough shape of daggers. Phil’s lips are blue and Dan can feel the cold even though they’re standing at least three feet apart. He takes a step to the side so Phil’s temperature doesn’t distract him any longer.

They both stare at the steel gate without saying a word and then suddenly the noise sounds again and with a metallic noise the gate slowly starts to open.

Dan takes a deep inhale and breathes out a small flame. He counts to ten in his head and then he starts walking forward, toward the gate, Phil close behind him.

Most of what Dan can see is, well, trees. Everything is overwhelmingly green and the air is thick and heavy. He jumps a little when the heavy gates close behind them with a loud noise.

“So, we should head straight forward, right?” Phil asks, following Dan.

“Why would you suggest that?” Dan responds, looking around curiously and almost missing the way Phil rolls his eyes.

“The objective is to make it to the center of this thing, that’s why.”

“I suppose. How long do you think it’ll take us to get there?”

“I don’t know,” Phil answers with a shrug. “We have a week, so I assume a couple of days at least. Though, knowing us, it’ll probably take a bit longer.”

“Why would you say that?” Dan asks, stopping dead in his tracks and turning around to face Phil.

“Are you kidding me? Look at us right now. We bicker every five minutes about the stupidest things which is going to waste a lot of time in the long run,” Phil says, bumping into Dan. He blinks a few times. “What the hell, Howell? Why did you stop?”

“Ugh,” Dan just grumbles, before turning back around and continuing to make his way through the forest, which is not all that easy because there is weird flora everywhere.

“Can we just get through this with as little bickering as possible?” Phil begs.

“You’re the one who keeps bringing it up,” Dan points out.

“Because you keep bickering.”

“Look, just shut up about it, all right? We need to find water.”

“We need to look for somewhere with damp ground,” Phil tells him.

“Can’t we just try to find a waterfall or a lake or something?”

“Dan we don’t have time to aimlessly wander through the forest and look for a lake. Damp ground is the much easier and quicker option because then we can dig for water.”

“Don’t speak to me like I’m four,” Dan snaps.

“Well excuse me… “ Phil rolls his eyes. “Let’s just look for bloody water.”

“What a marvelous plan.”

This is going to be a long week, Dan thinks to himself.

They walk for two hours, and there is still no sign of water anywhere. Phil bends down every 20 metres or so, to touch the ground, but he isn’t having much luck. Dan is keeping his eyes and ears open for signs of another possible water source, but he’s starting to get frustrated.

“What are we doing wrong?” Dan mumbles to himself, as he continues to look around. “I’m fucking thirsty.”

“You’re not the only one who’s thirsty, princess,” Phil snaps.

“Don’t call me that, you ass,” Dan retorts.

“Real mature,” Phil sighs as he looks around again. “Not one sign of water anywhere.”

“We’re probably looking in the wrong direction,” Dan says.

“Thanks Captain Obvious,” Phil rolls his eyes. “Obviously we’re looking in the wrong direction.”

“This is fucking stupid. This whole thing is,” Dan sighs and sits down on the ground.

“Dan, what are you doing? We need to keep going,” Phil says, a frown forming on his face.

“I’m tired, and I want to go home,” Dan mumbles.

“We all want to go home, but unfortunately… we can’t,” Phil says. “So get up.”

“Give me a few minutes, okay? We’ve been walking for hours and-” he interrupts himself and abruptly stands up again, walking a few steps before erupting into laughter. “We are actually so stupid.”

“What?” Phil asks, looking at him like he’s lost his mind. “Is the heat getting to your head, Howell?”

“Dude, no. Literally the only thing you can do is conjure up snow and ice out of thin air, Phil. That’s like… your only talent. And what are snow and ice?”

In that moment the scales seem to fall from Phil’s eyes.

“Frozen water,” he whispers and looks like he’s about to hit himself.

“Go on, then,” Dan urges and Phil gets the empty thermos out of their backpack.

Phil screws open the lid of the thermos and holds his fingers over the opening. Tiny ice crystals form on his fingertips before falling into the thermos and it doesn’t take more than a few minutes until it is completely filled with ice.

“Okay, we just have to wait for-”

Dan laughs loudly, stopping Phil mid-sentence. “Wow, today is really not your brightest day,” Dan mocks and takes the bottle from Phil’s cold hands. He concentrates a small amount of heat into his palms, slowly melting the ice inside the bottle. When he’s done he doesn’t hesitate anymore and takes a few big swigs from the thermos. Never has anything tasted better than this water and he wants to drink the whole thing, but manages to hold back. When the thermos is half-empty he hands it back to Phil before stretching out his tired limbs.

“Okay, so that problem should be out of the way,” he says and looks through the trees while Phil drinks the rest of the water. “Next we should-”

Dan stops, and Phil looks over the thermos at him.

“What?” Phil asks.

“Shut up,” Dan hisses, eyes fixated on a vague movement that he can spot behind some trees. He prays that it’s just some bird, but something is telling him that they’re not quite that lucky.

“What are you-” Phil starts, following Dan’s gaze. He gasps. His body feels frozen for a second with shock and disbelief as none other than a lioness emerges from the trees.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” Dan whispers and his vision goes cloudy for a moment as four more lions now step forward.

“Okay,” Phil says very quietly and slowly, steadily puts the bottle back in the backpack before shouldering it. “No quick movements, don’t turn your back to them.”

“I know,” Dan hisses and then there’s a snarl behind him and all good advice is forgotten as he whirls around to face two more lions only a few metres away from them.

Dan and Phil are standing back to back now, Phil facing the five lions and Dan the other two.

Dan wants to ask what they’re supposed to do, but he doesn’t have time when one of his lions jumps forward. He instinctively lifts up his arms and throws a ball of fire in the direction of the attacking animal. The lioness stops to avoid the fire and Dan has a few seconds to mentally prepare for the next steps. Behind him he can hear the other lions snarl and he can feel the cold emerging from Phil in short waves, but he doesn’t have time for that now, lifting his right hand again, prepared for the next attack.

“Dan, hold your fire,” Phil yells and the cold is getting more intense now.

“Why?” Dan asks.

“Jesus, don’t ask questions. Just please control yourself, you’re too warm, it’s not working.”

Now Dan turns around just a bit and realises what Phil is trying to do. The lions on the other side are being held back by a thick barrier of ice and it looks like Phil is attempting to form a ring around himself and Dan, but the ice is melting away at the edges and it looks like the lions are starting to figure that out too. They slowly walk around the barrier, towards the other two that are still looking at Dan. They are all baring their teeth and Dan knows he needs to get his body temperature down and he needs to do it now.

He’s trying to take deep breaths, but the lions are stepping closer and Phil continuously yelling his name is really not helping. He’s too worked up, he doesn’t have full control over his powers and his instincts are taking over. He inhales deeply and then he breathes fire, igniting everything between them and the lions. He can’t see much through the fire and smoke, but he can see the animals panicking and eventually retreating.

“Are you out of your mind?” Phil asks, standing next to him, looking at the wall of fire in disbelief. The flames are starting to lick on the trees and the smoke is getting thicker. The crackle of the fire sounds loud in Dan’s ears and only now does he really realise what he’s done.

“I would have had it under control.” Phil adds, and Dan stutters for a moment before responding.

“Well, I solved the lion problem, didn’t I?”

“Yes, and if we don’t do something now we’ll have an uncontrollable wildfire problem on our hands,” Phil hisses.

It takes them what feels like eternity to handle the situation and after the last flames are extinguished, Phil, who arguably has done most of the work, just falls to the ground. There is ash smeared over his face and his arms are shaking and for just a second Dan feels like he should apologize, but in the end he doesn’t, because Phil is still a Lester and Howells don’t apologize to Lesters.

“We need to keep going to find shelter for tonight,” is what he says instead.

“Two minutes,” Phil says, without opening his eyes. “This really drained my powers. I’m thirsty, Dan, but I can’t conjure up any more ice right now.”

“Shit,” Dan mumbles. “Okay, two minutes, I’ll be on the look-out, in case the lions come back.”

“Please try not to start anymore fires.”

“Haha, very funny Lester.”

Phil ends up needing ten minutes before he’s able to stand up and walk again. Dan wordlessly takes the backpack from him because he might be feeling the tiniest bit guilty over this whole thing. Their powers really don’t work well together. He had anticipated problems arising from their opposing elements, but that they’re hindering them so early in the exam is a bit disheartening.

“Do you hear that?” Phil suddenly asks.

“If you tell me there are more lions-”

“No, no, no,” Phil interrupts him. “Water.”

And indeed, now that Phil has pointed it out, Dan can hear the faint rushing of water.

It takes them five more minutes to reach the lake. As by miracle they find a small cave close the bank border and Dan sets up there while Phil cleans himself in the lake.

————————————————————————————————— 

Phil comes back after half an hour, and he truly looks like a new person.

“As cold as ever, Lester,” Dan comments when Phil sits down next to him and he feels the chilly air radiating from the other boy’s body.

They find a few berries and edible roots before it starts getting dark in the forest, but it’s not much. They both know that come morning, the first thing on the agenda is going to be to find proper food.

When night finally falls, the noises in the forest start to seem way more prominent than before. The chill in the air is unexpectant, despite being relatively sheltered in their small cave. Phil lies at the entrance, keeping watch, which Dan is silently extremely grateful for.

He is terrified of the dark and this forest seems to get… extra dark. His fingers are shaking, and it’s not from the cold; he’s able to hold that off relatively well thanks to his abilities.

“Are you alright?” Phil asks eventually. Dan wants to make a sarcastic comment, but he can’t concentrate on being witty right now.

“Yes,” he simply says instead, breathing warm air into his hands and rubbing them together.

“You’re shivering,” Phil points out. “Are you cold? I mean, I’d offer to keep you warm, but since I’m, you know, me, there really isn’t any point to that.”

“No,” Dan mumbles, before just deciding to bury his face into his arms, so he doesn’t have to see the outside world anymore. He can pretend that he’s back at school in his cozy bed, in no imminent danger.

“I’ll stay up and keep watch for a while,” he hears Phil say in an unusually soft voice. “So we don’t have to worry about… getting attacked by anything.” There’s a twinge in Dan’s stomach at the thought of the immanent danger around him

He doesn’t say anything anymore, too exhausted and too scared to keep their conversation going. Still, he’s glad to know that someone is watching out for demons and axe-murderers and Samara, even though it’s Phil bloody Lester.

————————————————————————————————— 

Dan is woken up at dawn by his stomach grumbling almost violently. He groans internally and slowly opens his eyes. The first thing he sees is, well, not Phil. Because Phil is gone.

“Shit,” Dan mumbles and sits up, almost hitting his head on the skewed cave ceiling in the process. He frantically looks around in the dim cave and then takes a deep breath. Phil has probably only gone out to pee or something and not gotten mauled by a wendigo or some other equally terrifying and supernatural being . Dan thinks to himself that even if he had, he probably deserved it.

He tries to go back to sleep until Phil comes back, ignoring his rumbling stomach, but that proves to be pretty hard.

Phil comes back what feels like an eternity later.

“Where have you been?” Dan snarls, successfully managing to downplay the slightest hint of worry that’s creeping into his tone.

“You should really be a little nicer to a guy who’s bringing you breakfast,” Phil grumbles and kneels down next to Dan, revealing the huge amount of figs he’s brought. “I’ve been out for about an hour, but this is all I could come up with. Has to be enough for now.”

Dan’s cheeks flush a little, feeling almost a little bad because, admittedly, Phil is pulling more than his weight here. Then again, he’s a Lester, so he’ll show his true colors again soon enough, Dan’s sure of it.

They eat the figs in silence and, even though they don’t really fill Dan up, it’s enough to quieten down the rumbling of his stomach for now.

“I suggest we go fishing later,” Phil says after eating the last fig. “I think I remember how to build a spear from a sketch in some book and even though I really, really hate fish, I think that’s our best bet for some proper food.”

For the most part of the morning, they just walk. Phil has somehow figured out that they have to be heading south-west to reach the middle of the arena, and they try to orient themselves in that direction as best as they can, using the position of the sun.

“This is so fucking boring,” Dan mumbles after about two hours, missing his iPod and the company of people he actually likes.

Phil just shrugs in the most infuriating way and Dan is long past the point of asking himself why just a shrug makes him want to pick a fight.

“You’re really not the most entertaining company, Lester.”

“Believe it or not, but I’m not really trying to entertain you,” Phil retorts, but it comes out less snappy than usual.

“Humour me,” Dan prompts.

“Not in the mood.”

“Oh, has little Philly woken up on the wrong side of the bed?”

When Phil doesn’t say anything, Dan decides to keep going; at least this is less boring than just walking in silence.

“Cat got your tongue?”

He keeps throwing jabs in Phil’s direction for the next few minutes until he’s pretty sure the other boy is ready to maul him.

“I shouldn’t be surprised by that, I mean I’ve seen your mothe-,” Dan is just starting to say when Phil interrupts him by quickly turning towards him and grabbing a fistful of his shirt. Dan doesn’t have enough time to react when Phil shoves him roughly against the next tree and holds him there.

“Shut up, Howell. I’m warning you!” Phil presses out between his teeth.

Dan raises an eyebrow provokingly.

“Make me!”

Phil’s pupils are blown so wide that his eyes look almost black and the cold is coming off his body in short waves. He licks his dry lips and presses Dan harder against the tree, so he can feel the sharp edges of the bark pushing into his back. Dan is overcome by the sudden weird feeling that Phil is either about to kill or kiss him, and both of these options sound less than ideal to him. He closes his eyes, sending heat coursing through his veins until Phil has to let go of him because Dan is getting too hot to touch or even be near. Phil stumbles back a few feet, and it seems to take him a few seconds to regain his composure.

“Let’s just keep going,” Dan eventually says, quickly downplaying the weird moment they just had. “I’m about to starve, so we really need to find a river to put your fishing plan into action.”


	2. Chapter 2

It takes them another hour to actually come across a river. It’s neither very deep nor very wide, but Dan thinks he spots some movement just below the surface, so they decide that this place is as good as any to try to get their hands on some proper food.

Dan finds a branch they can use and Phil cuts crosshairs into the end of it with their knife, pushing some of their rope into the grooves to separate the ends before sharpening them. They end up with a wacky looking but hopefully effective spear.

Standing at the riverside, Phil presses the spear into Dan’s hands.

“You can try it first.”

“No way, man,” Dan protests. “This was your idea.”

“Scared you won’t catch anything?” Phil asks provokingly and raises an eyebrow.

“That tactic is not going to work on me, Lester,” Dan says decidedly. He means it, he truly does, so he’s not exactly sure how he ends up wading into the river about three minutes later, mocking Phil’s voice. “Scared you won’t catch anything, haha, I’ll show you.”

After about half an hour of aimlessly wading through the river, trying to spot any fish and haphazardly sticking the spear into the water, Dan has to admit that he may have been a bit over-confident in his fishing abilities.

Phil has done nothing helpful, or anything at all, in fact, but make snide comments from the riverside and splash water at Dan using his stupid powers, so Dan decides it’s really his turn. He’s slowly walking towards the other boy, still looking down in the hopes of catching a fish last minute and-

“Dan,” Phil says quietly, but Dan can hear the distinct panic in his tone. “Turn around and please tell me I’m hallucinating.”

Dan is feeling terrified at the pure thought of what might be lurking behind him and he swears to all the gods that he can think of to drown Phil in this very river if he is fucking with him. He turns, very slowly, and when he sees it, he almost lets out a very high-pitched shriek. He claps his spare hand over his mouth to stop it.

It’s a bear. It’s a fucking bear not twenty feet away from them at the other side of the river. and now it just feels like their teachers are sending in random wildlife to kill them off.

“Shit, shit, fuck,” Dan mumbles and tightens his grip around the spear he’s still holding.

“I- I- fuck I can’t remember what to do,” Phil mumbles, and Dan can hear the panic in his voice. “I read about it, but I just-”

“Okay,” Dan interrupts him. “Don’t take your eyes off of it, back away slowly.”

They walk back at an agonizingly slow path, Dan still in the water and it looks like the bear still hasn’t really noticed them. That is until Phil steps onto a branch and falls down to the floor with a lot of noise, and the bear turns towards them.

The bear bares its teeth at them. Dan knows that they’ve probably invaded its territory and hunting ground, and that they’re in for a lot of trouble.

Phil has stood up again and is now wading into the water next to Dan, lifting his arms up. Out of the corner of his eye Dan can see Phil’s fingers shaking badly.

“Fuck,” Phil mumbles in a broken voice. “I- I can’t- I-”

The water in front of them is moving a bit and Dan is guessing that Phil is trying to prepare for some kind of attack and failing.

The bear goes from assessing the situation to charging at them in no time. It’s incredibly fast and Phil is still not doing anything. Dan conjures up a little heat and throws a few fireballs at the bear, but that only minutely slows it down. Dan knows that they couldn’t possibly outrun it, so they have to stay and fight. When the bear strikes with its paw, Dan tries to land a hit in its face using their spear and duck afterwards. It kind of works, but he stumbles and now he has the mouth full of water and is also at the huge disadvantage of being mostly submerged in the river. He is quick to get back up though and throws another fireball in the bears direction.

“Do something,” he yells at Phil when the bear is coming up to its hind legs and charging at Dan again. He manages to shield his face with his arm, but suddenly there is a hot pain coursing through his forearm. Dan yells out in pain and that seems to be waking Phil up from his fear frozen state. He finally manages to raise up enough of the water so that it pushes the bear backwards. Dan doesn’t dare to look at his left arm as he prepares himself for the next attack. All he knows is that he can’t really move it, so he breathes in deep and uses his right arm to signal Phil to stop with the water.

As soon as the bear is charging at them again Dan breathes out a long stream of fire that’s hitting the bear directly on its wet fur. The animal suddenly looks terrified and lets out a loud roar before changing his direction mid-attack and aiming for Phil instead. Phil throws handfuls if icy daggers at the bear, but they don’t really hold up against the general heat that is going on all around them, so Dan steps in again, pushing Phil back and breathing another wall of fire against the bear. The animal finally seems to have had enough and turns around, running off.

The adrenaline is still coursing through Dan’s veins, but he can’t stand upright anymore, too relieved that it’s over, and sinks down into the water.

“Dan,” Phil whispers hoarsely, still sounding terrified.

“What is it now?” Dan snaps weakly. “Snakes? Monkeys? Raining frogs or some other biblical plague? Something other that you can stare and look at like an idiot while I do all the work?”

“Look down.”

He does as he’s told, but he can’t really see much because the water around him has turned a crimson red. Phil is by his side quickly and pulls him out of the river.

“Your arm,” he whispers and now Dan finally looks down.

The left sleeve of his top is almost completely gone and his forearm is a mess of blood and long open wounds.

“Shit,” he says surprisingly matter-of-factly.

“We have to stop the bleeding,” Phil assesses, frantically looking around for something to achieve that with. He still looks horrified, but now for obviously different reasons than an attacking bear.

They haven’t found any shelter in this area and it seems stupidly dangerous to stay at the riverside, but they don’t have many options because the adrenaline is starting to wear off and Dan is barely holding it together.

Phil cuts off the rest of Dan’s sleeve and shrugs off his own top.

“What are you doing?” Dan presses out between his teeth and takes a sharp breath in.

“You’re losing too much blood,” is all Phil says before pressing the fabric down on Dan’s arm.

“Oh god,” Dan whispers as the pain suddenly seems to multiply by a hundred, and when Phil presses down even harder he can no longer hold back a scream.

“Ssh,” Phil desperately mumbles. “Every animal in a two hundred feet radius is going to hear you.”

“Do you think I fucking care?” Dan almost yells. “This is all your fault anyway.”

“I know, I know,” Phil replies silently, looking even more pale than usual. “I am so sorry, I just-”

Phil is holding up Dan’s arm while applying constant pressure. His hands are coated in Dan’s blood and it looks incredibly gruesome.

“I just blacked out and-”

“Save it,” Dan hisses because the pain is not exactly putting him in a very forgiving mood.

Phil falls silent and concentrates back on stopping the bleeding. Dan isn’t sure how long he’s lying there, but it seems like an eternity and his vision is starting to fog up. He closes his eyes with a sigh.

“No, Dan,” Phil says and uses his free hand to tap Dan’s cheek. “You need to stay awake, okay?”

“I’m tired.”

“I know, I know, but please stay awake, okay?”

“Don’t want to,” he mumbles weakly, letting his eyelids droop again.The sharp edge of pain that erupts when his face starts getting really fucking cold brings him back from the edge of unconsciousness.

“You crazy?” He snaps and pushes Phil’s icy hand meekly away from his face.

“Stay awake a little longer,” Phil says, not paying attention to his protests. “The bleeding is already starting get weaker and then we’ll find shelter and I’ll find some food and then you can sleep, I promise.”

“If you don’t get me almost-killed again in the process.”

“I said I was sorry!”

“You know where you can put your sorry?” Dan grumbles and draws in another shallow breath. The pain in his arm is now duller than before.

It takes another eternity until Phil can trust Dan to hold down the shirt on his wound on his own while he cuts off part of his pants to make a makeshift bandage. He dresses the wound somewhat expertly and quickly washes out most of the blood from his top before shoving it into their backpack.

He helps Dan get up and put his uninjured arm around his shoulders. Dan is still feeling dizzy, so Phil ends up half-carrying him away from the river. Phil’s bare torso is pressed against him and Dan can feel the cold seep through his own top.

They don’t get lucky and find some kind of cave this time, so eventually Phil just sits Dan down on the ground, leaning his back against a tree and starts looking around for wood he can use on a very improvised round lodge. It takes Phil forever to build something decent using two huge boulders, countless branches and their rope, and by the time it’s finished, Dan is feeling incredibly tired again.

“Come on,” Phil mumbles and drags Dan into their improvised shelter. He makes him drink water from their thermos.

Eventually Dan pushes Phil’s hands away and closes his eyes again.

When he wakes up, the sun is already going down and the pain in his arm has dwindled to a dull throbbing. There’s a noise next to him, and for a moment Dan is afraid that it’s some kind of new enemy, but when he opens his eyes he only sees Phil.

Phil’s eyes are red and he looks down at Dan with an expression that Dan has never seen on his face. When Phil notices that Dan is awake he quickly turns away and clears his throat.

“I wanted to wait until you were awake before I go out to look for food.”

“Great,” Dan mumbles, still apprehensive because he very well remembers how he got to this state. “I’m awake now, so you can go.”

“I’ll stay close by, just in case anything-”

“Just leave, okay?” Dan interrupts him. “I’m starving and in a lot of pain and that really isn’t a good combination.”

Phil nods quickly and shoots him a last worried look before crawling out of their shelter and disappearing from Dan’s field of vision.

Dan sits by himself in silence for nearly an hour, and by the time Phil’s face appears again, he’s starving. He’s never been so hungry in his life before. He hopes to God that Phil was successful and brought food.

“If you don’t have any food with you, don’t bother coming over here,” Dan warns.

“Relax… I’ve got food,” Phil tells him as he walks over to Dan and sits next to him. “I found a few fruit trees, it’s pretty far but I carried as much as I could back. And I filled this up with water again…” Phil says as he sits the backpack in front of him to pull out the thermos and handing it to Dan.

“Did you see anymore lions or bears or… tigers?”

“Oh my,” Phil jokes, a light giggle escapes from his mouth.

Dan wants to smile at the stupid, adorable joke Phil made, but he doesn’t. “You’re an idiot,”

“I’m the one with the food here, so you better be nice to me,” Phil sighs; he wishes that Dan would just lighten up, even just for a little bit. “And no… I didn’t see any more dangerous animals. We should be safe for at least a couple of hours. But I think we should stay overnight, or at least until you’re all healed up.” He looks over at Dan. “Is that okay?”

“Yes,” Dan can’t help but roll his eyes at Phil. “Can I eat now? I’m starved.”

Phil pulls out a couple of bananas and apples and hands Dan two of each. “We need to save some of the food for breakfast so don’t eat a lot. Once we take off again, we can stop by that tree again and get more food so that we can take little breaks while walking.” He looks over at Dan and frowns slightly when he sees the look on his face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Did you plan all of this while you were out there or something?” Dan questions.

Phil shrugs. “I was bored… I had to do something while I was looking around for food…”

“Whatever,” Dan sighs and takes a bite of one of the apples, trying to to ignore the pain that he can still feel in his arm. “I hope this pain goes away overnight. It’s so fucking annoying.”

“You’ll be fine,” Phil assures, before he also takes a bite of his food.

Dan glances over at Phil for a quick second before he turns back to his own food.

Dan slaps Phil’s hand away from its approach to his forehead. “Dan, you’re burning up. I know you have a higher body temperature, but this can’t be good,” Phil says with a sigh as he watches Dan, who feels like someone has poured lava into his veins. It’s a different heat from the one that usually fills him up and it’s making him see spots. He can’t quite seem to manipulate his own body temperature, an experience he’s certainly not used to and that leaves a spike of fear running through boiling blood.

“No,” Dan mumbles, trying to stop feeling so dizzy. “I’m fine.”

“You’ll feel better if you come a little closer. Look, I don’t want to cuddle any more than you do, but I also don’t want you to die from a stupid fever,” Phil insists.

Dan groans before he carefully pushes himself up. “Fuck this.”

Phil raises an eyebrow and opens his arms as he waits for Dan. Dan hesitates for a few more moments before he crawls over to Phil and cuddles up next to him. He immediately feels the cold of Phil’s body seep through their clothes and he lets out a shaky breath.

“Jesus, I’m going to have third-degree burns in about two minutes,” Phil mumbles and puts his arm around Dan, pulling him a little closer.

“Don’t get any ideas, Lester,” Dan warns.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Howell,” Phil replies sleepily and leans back against the wall of their makeshift shelter.

Feeling the cold that’s emitting from Phil is pure bliss and wow, that’s something Dan never expected he’d think. He turns his face more towards Phil so that his forehead gets cooled down a little and closes his eyes. For some reason, he doesn’t even worry about the dark and trees and demons all that much as he listens to Phil’s even breathing, and although his arm still hurts and his fever is still running high, he can feel the sleep tugging at him.

Dan isn’t sure if he’s actually fallen asleep when he feels a cool touch on his face. He tries to keep breathing evenly as Phil’s fingers slowly run down his face because opening his eyes now would be extremely awkward. Phil’s touch doesn’t feel like anything Dan has ever known, it’s like little impulses of electricity are sparking beneath Phil’s fingertips, just like a cold front and a warm front meeting and creating a thunderstorm. He doesn’t know why Phil is doing this, but Dan also doesn’t really want him to stop because it feels weirdly good.

Eventually Phil’s hand is gone and it doesn’t take Dan long to fall into an uneasy sleep.

When morning comes Dan’s fever has gone down and his ability to control his body temperature has returned. The pain in his arm is still a dull throbbing, but it’s not as bad at it had been the day before.

“How does your arm feel?”

Dan jumps as soon as he hears Phil’s voice.

“Christ, you could have warned me before you spoke,” Dan chokes out, shaking his head.

“I just woke up… how long have you been awake?” Phil asks tiredly as he sits up. He groans and moves to crack his back. “God, we need to find a better place to sleep tonight.”

“You think?” Dan rubs his eyes. “I’ve been awake maybe 15 minutes… and my arm is feeling better, thanks for asking. You better eat something before we go off again.”

“Whoa, you want to leave so soon? Don’t you want to rest more?” Phil asks, he frowns slightly.

“No. I don’t want to spend a week in this… dome thing. The faster we go and the more we go, the closer we get to the end of where we need to be,” Dan says.

“I wonder how the other teams are doing,” Phil mumbles.

“Probably better than us,” Dan retorts, before he leans back against the tree.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Phil asks, as he crosses his arms against his chest.

“We’ve already encountered a pack of lions and a bear… and my arm got hurt. We’ve got little food and we’re sleeping in this terrible thing you put together. Need I say more?” Dan snaps, he shoots a glare at Phil.

“Why are you so negative all the time?” Phil scoffs.

“I wouldn’t be so negative if I hadn’t gotten clawed open by a bloody bear,” Dan rolls his eyes.

“Eat your stupid banana,” Phil says angrily before he stands up from his spot.

“Where are you going?” Dan asks as he looks up at Phil.

“Going to go get more food. Stay here,” Phil warns.

“You’re just going to leave me here alone in broad daylight?” Dan asks.

“Well clearly you don’t want me here, and we need food. Don’t do anything stupid and you’ll be fine, alright? I’ll make more water while I’m gone,” Phil says.

“Fine,” Dan mumbles, shrugging. “Go, and hurry back. I don’t want to be alone for too long… I’ve already got one bad arm so I can’t actually defend myself.”

“I’ll only be gone an hour, tops,” Phil tells him before he walks away.

Dan sighs. Nervously, he glances around to make sure that there’s nothing around him.

While Dan absolutely hates being stuck under this dome with someone he’s hated for so many years… his thoughts and feelings are starting to change towards Phil, and he isn’t so sure he if he likes it or not. Things are definitely going to be different once the exam is finished.

Phil finally comes back, with fresh food and fresh water.

“Are you feeling well enough to start walking? We’ll probably be on our feet for a couple hours,” Phil says.

Dan nods. “Yeah… I feel rested enough to walk for a while, but we’ll have to take a break at some point. Help me up?” Dan asks as he looks up at Phil.

Phil nods and carefully pulls Dan up from the ground, handing him the thermos. “Thank God our powers actually come in handy. Though, I bet that Emma’s probably already out of here,” Phil says as they start to walk again. “I’ve never been more jealous of her.”

“You think? This dome is pretty huge,” Dan says as he follows behind Phil.

“Have you seen how fast she is?” Phil asks as he looks over at Dan.

“Obviously…” Dan rolls his eyes. “Let’s just keep going forward.”

“Keep an eye out for signs of food and any caves that we could sleep in,” Phil quickly says.

Dan and Phil walk for what feels like an eternity before Dan finally has enough and has to take a break. It’s almost nighttime, and his arm is throbbing in pain again, and Phil feels helpless because there is nothing he can do that could help Dan feel better.

“At least there’s a cave up ahead,” Phil says as he sits down next to Dan.

“I’m tired, and hungry… and I miss my iPod,” Dan whines.

“Here,” Phil pulls out an apple for Dan. “Eat.”

“And I’m tired of eating fruit,” Dan groans as he takes the apple for Phil.

“It’s just for a couple more days,” Phil tells him.

“Easy for you to say… you’re not the one with the injured arm,” Dan sighs with frustration.

“I said I was sorry, okay? I really am, I feel bad,” Phil mumbles.

Dan bites his lip nervously as he looks over at Phil. “Phil, can I ask you something?”

“Depends…” He chuckles when Dan rolls his eyes. “Sure.”

“Do you have a crush on me or something?” Dan asks curiously.

Phil’s eyes widen and he spits out the water that he just took a drink of. “Wh-What?”

“I’ve done a lot of thinking… while we’re here, how Joe was acting weird the other night at the party and said that you had a secret. Then last night… I felt you stroke my cheek,” Dan whispers.

Phil’s eyes go wide with shock. “N-No I didn’t do that,” he says quickly.

Dan rolls his eyes. “I’m not an idiot, Phil. Come on, just be honest with me,” he says calmly.

“Can we not talk about this now?” Phil almost whispers.

“We’ll have to talk about it eventually,” Dan insists.

“I’d rather talk about it later,” Phil turns so that Dan can’t see his face.

Great, more awkwardness, Dan thinks to himself.

After a fifteen minute break, Dan and Phil start to walk again.

Dan couldn’t be more relieved when they finally reach the cave.

“At least it’s bigger,” Dan says as he and Phil walk into the cave. Dan glances over at Phil and frowns when Phil doesn’t say anything back to him. “Are you going to give me the silent treatment now?”

“I thought you wouldn’t complain about that,” Phil mumbles before sitting down at the back of the cave.

“Let’s just not talk about this while we’re supposed to be focusing on this exam,” Dan says as he sits next to Phil. “I’ve already got enough bloody thoughts in my head.”

“Sounds good to me,” Phil closes his eyes and leans back, he tries to get comfortable.

“Can we cuddle like last night?” Dan mumbles even though he’s incredibly embarrassed for even asking, but having Phil close is really keeping his fear of the dark in check.

“We can just start a fire like we did last time,” Phil says, even though he probably knows that this is really not about keeping warm.

Dan sighs. “I’ll go get some wood,” he mumbles.

“No… you’re going to sit here…” Phil says as he quickly stands up. “Your arm is still healing.”

“Don’t be out long, okay?” Dan says, surprising himself at how soft his voice sounds.

Phil just nods, looks at Dan one last time before walking out of the cave.

“Lord help me. It’s going to be a long night,” Dan quietly says to himself.

Two days later, Dan is relieved that the wound on his arm is still not showing any signs of infection and is neatly starting to close up.

They’re finally feeling like they’re making some serious progress in the arena, although they had to give in and eventually catch and kill some squirrels because living off of just fruit had seriously been affecting their stamina. That particular act had been accompanied by a lot of whining on Phil’s and a lot of mocking on Dan’s part.

Other than that, they mostly keep quiet and to themselves. The fact that Dan had asked the loaded question about Phil having a crush on him had seriously brought the mood down. Phil hasn’t really spoken to him at all, and Dan is starting to feel almost bad for him, but not enough to actually say anything. Besides, he feels like they get a lot more done when they’re not constantly at each other’s throats, which he knows is important, particularly now that they are getting closer and closer to their final goal.

“There’s a waterfall up ahead,” Phil breaks the usual silence and Dan looks up, blinking a couple of times.

“Okay,” Dan responds quietly. “Watch out for any more bears.” They walk closer to the waterfall and take a quick break. They’re only taking short breaks now, so they have more time to walk and get closer to their goal. Dan wishes that it wasn’t so boring and quiet.

“Dan, be careful where you’re walking. You’re going to fall into the water,” Phil warns as he watches Dan walk over a few particularly wet and slippery spots.

“I know what I’m doing, mom,” Dan rolls his eyes.

“Ew, don’t call me that,” Phil sighs and shakes his head.

“Do you think we could catch some fish?” Dan asks curiously as he walks along with waterfall edge.

“Why would we need to catch fish?” Phil asks.

“Because,” Dan sighs. “We can’t just keep eating fruit. I don’t want to look at another banana and I feel like killing fish could be a little easier than offing those squirrels.”

“Just be thankful that we found any food,” Phil snaps before he rolls his eyes.

“Quit talking to me like I’m a child,” Dan retorts.

“Dan, would you please be careful where you’re walking? You’re going to-” Phil’s eyes go wide as soon as he sees Dan slip. “Dan!” He yells, as he watches Dan fall into the water. Phil quickly runs over to the waterfall edge, not wasting any time.

“Grab a hold of the edge!” Phil yells.

Dan’s head pops up from underwater, his eyes are wide and he’s clearly panicking.

“Whatever you do, don’t drink the water!”

The water is absolutely freezing and Dan can barely swim with his arm still being sore and bruised. Dan quickly grabs a hold of the edge and tries to hold onto it but the water is running fast.

“I-It’s g-go-oing too f-fast!” Dan shouts at Phil.

Phil shakes his head.

“You’re not getting hurt again, not on my watch!”

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, concentrating on his powers. Within seconds, ice forms on his hands and he quickly starts shooting ice towards the water around Dan, freezing an area of the water and making it so that Dan stays still in one spot and doesn’t float along with the water.

“Hurry Phil, please!” Dan cries as he holds on tight to the edge. He can’t keep himself together, doesn’t remember that the teachers can still intervene, he’s just scared as the panic is rushing through him, eliminating every rational thought.

“Please get me out of here!” Dan pleads with a sob, not caring about his image or anything really.

Phil bends down and grabs a hold of Dan, and he tries to pull him up.

“Grab a hold of me!”

“I’m trying!” Dan holds onto Phil as tightly as he can. “I’m gonna freeze to death!”

“No, I’m not gonna let you-” Phil grunts as he pulls on Dan more. “Drown!”

He gasps as he’s finally able to get Dan’s upper body onto the ground. Then he quickly grabs a hold of his legs and pulls them out of the water, and a sense of relief flushes through his body. Dan is safe.

“Oh my God,” Dan gasps once he’s out of the water. He’s shivering and his whole body is freezing, his instincts seem to have just given out and he doesn’t even think about warming himself up.

“You’re an idiot,” Phil whispers as he looks down at Dan. “I told you to be careful.”

“I know,” Dan sniffs and quickly wipes away his leftover tears. “I’m s-sorry.”

“Really?” Phil asks, a small frown forms on his face. “No snarky comment?”

Dan shakes his head, his body still shaking. “I’m just ha-happy to b-be ou-out.”

Phil takes a deep breath and then he helps Dan turn over so that he is lying on his back.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Phil says softly. He can’t help but smile.

“You saved my life,” Dan whispers as he looks up at Phil.

“You’re already hurt because of me-” Phil nods towards Dan’s arm. “I couldn’t let you get hurt again.”

“Thank you,” Dan breathes. He’d never thought that he would say those words to Phil Lester.

Phil bites his lip as he stares at Dan, and it goes silent between them.

“Wh-Why are you staring at me like that?” Dan asks.

“I-” Phil closes his eyes, hesitating. Their eyes meet, brown staring into blue. Phil leans down and just kisses him. For a moment, Dan can’t do anything. Phil’s lips seem to send a current through his body and shivers up his spine. He’s never felt anything like this, and he’s still wet and freezing and they could get attacked at any moment, but Dan realises that he honestly couldn’t care less.

The kiss ends after lasting only a few seconds when Phil leans back. They are both breathless and staring at eachother.

“Oh fuck-” Phil mutters under his breath. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“You-” Dan is speechless. He slowly sits up, trying to use that time to gather his thoughts. He’s hated Phil for as long as he can remember, has hated him as soon as he’s heard his last name. He’s never once thought of him as anything more than the enemy. Okay, maybe that’s a lie. Phil can be adorable at times and not to mention that he’s quite good looking, and…

Fuck, Dan thinks to himself. He’s in trouble.

What would his father going say if he knew that Dan could possibly have feelings for a Lester?

“Dan? A-Are you okay?” Phil asks, slowly reaching out and touching Dan’s shoulder

Dan blinks a few times.

“Uh-”.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kiss you like that…” Phil begins to say.

“Stop. Let’s not talk about this right now, okay?” Dan takes a deep breath. “We’ve got more important things to worry about. I-I just want to get this exam over with. I just want to be home.”

Phil slowly nods. “Okay,” he mumbles. “Wanna take a break?”

“Yes,” Dan answers. “My whole body is freezing.”

Phil helps Dan stand up and leads him over to a tree, and helps him sit down.

“This fucking sucks,” Dan mumbles as he rests against the tree.

“I’m sorry… I wish this could be more enjoyable for you,” Phil mumbles. For once, it doesn’t even sound sarcastic.

Dan bites his lip as he looks over at Phil, but he doesn’t say anything. Silence falls over them again as Dan finally starts to gather up warmth in his chest and hands, trying to spread it through his body.

Things are definitely going to be different once they got out of the arena, Dan can just feel it.

“Phil,” Dan says and points at a red splash of colour not far in the distance. “I think I see something.”

It’s a mere twelve hours after the incident at the waterfall and they’re both still shaken up about it, but Dan is dry and at his normal body temperature again, which, really, is all that counts for now.

“What is it?” Phil asks.

“It looks like a… like a flag,” Dan says slowly, squinting his eyes at the red thing that is still mostly obscured by trees and greenery.

“Well, let’s get closer.”

They start to walk again, making their way through the undergrowth.

“I think it really is a flag,” Dan eventually mumbles more to himself than to Phil. He doesn’t really want to get his hopes up yet, but he still can’t help but ask. “Do you think… this could be, you know, it.”

“You mean the end of this whole bloody thing?” Phil asks as he cuts through a long vine with a dagger he’s formed out of clear ice.

“Maybe. If it isn’t, we’re seriously running out of time.”

They keep heading towards the red flag as as they get closer and closer they can finally see through the trees. A cylindrical tower, painted in camouflage, stands beneath the flag, and Dan spies a tall metal door.

“Phil, this is it,” Dan almost yells and starts walking faster, eventually breaking out into a sprint.

“Dan, wait! I think I hear something,” Phil shouts behind him. “Don’t get cocky and-”

Dan stops dead in his tracks when Phil interrupts himself because now he can hear it too. What has started out as a faint buzzing noise is starting to get louder and Dan almost doesn’t want to turn around. The door is only about fifty feet away, he could just go for it. It only takes him the fraction of a second to make his choice and he takes a deep breath and turns around.

Wrong choice is the first thing that comes to his mind as he sees the hornets emerging from a nest at a tree right between him and Phil. But this is not a normal hornets nest and these are not normal hornets. Each of them is about a foot long; together, they sound like a jet taking off, and they are headed right for them.

“Dan,” Phil yells and Dan’s first instinct is to cover his face and just lie down on the floor, but of course that’s not the best plan of attack. The heat is spreading through his body almost automatically.

“You take these to your left,” he shouts to Phil who he can now barely see through the twitching bodies of the giant insects. “Do not let them get close.”

Flames are dancing on Dan’s fingertips and he shoots a fireball directly at the first hornet charging at him. It burns to a crisp in a matter of seconds and he can see Phil stand there with swords out of ice in his hands. Dan takes a few steps towards Phil and with that towards the hornets, but he doesn’t really care because he can easily burn any that come too close to him. The pain in his arm is back with a sharp reminder that he isn’t fully healed yet, but Dan hopes that the adrenaline is going to take care of that.

The insects soon seem to realise that Dan, with the waves of heat coming off of his body, seems to be the greater threat and they focus on Phil. At least a dozen of them are flying towards him with their loud buzzing and Phil yells something that Dan can’t understand. He runs forward and shoots the first that comes too close to Phil down with a fireball.

It takes a few more fireballs until he’s finally standing close to Phil. He’s trying to keep the heat from his body to a minimum now and focus all the energy in his hands, so that Phil’s ice doesn’t melt.

“Cover me,” he orders. “I’ll try to burn their nest because if we don’t they’ll just keep coming.”

“Okay,” Phil says, and drives his sword into a hornet coming way too close to Dan.

Dan concentrates his fire on the gigantic and rather nauseating hornets’ nest. It takes a few moments until it comes loose, but then the burning hive is falling and hitting the ground a few feet in front of Dan and Phil. Dan is about to yell out in triumph when the nest bursts open and a black swarm of hornets is released into the ear.

“Fuck,” he yells in panic, mind going blank.

“Bring down your body temperature now,” Phil orders him in a calm voice and Dan obliges in a matter of seconds.

Phil makes a few complicated movements and it doesn’t take long until they are enclosed by a dome of ice that’s getting thicker and thicker by the second, the buzzing of the hornets growing faint and eventually being completely shut out.

“Okay,” Phil says, still forming more ice around them. “We have time to think now.”

Dan is freezing, and it goes against all his instincts to keep his body temperature this low, but he’s doing the best he can.

“I don’t know,” he says, agitated. “I thought bringing down the nest would be a good idea, but-”

“It didn’t work. That’s fine, we just have to think of something new.”

“Yeah, but-”

“No, buts,” Phil says and reaches out with one hand, putting his cold fingers on Dan’s shoulder for a few moments, squeezing lightly. “We can do this. Together.”

“Okay,” Dan nods. “I could probably get most of them with a heat wave, but you can’t be in the blast radius for that.”

“Well, I can’t really get out of here without them getting to me. How thick would the ice have to be to hold your heat off?”

“I don’t know, it’s not like I-I’ve ever t-tested it out,” Dan mumbles with a shaky voice, the cold slowly getting to him.

“You can’t stay here. I propose you melt yourself out, give me about fifteen seconds to rebuild the ice and make it as hard and thick as I can and then you try to lure them away at least a few feet and just go for it.”

“W-what if you g-get hurt?”

“We can just hope it doesn’t happen,” Phil says, finally putting down his hands. “If I do it wouldn’t be the first time you burned me anyway and we’re so close to the end, we can get medical treatment in a matter of minutes.”

“It s-seems to be the only way. B-b-but I’ll lure them away as f-far as I can first,” Dan says, but he can’t help thinking about what his heat could do to Phil. The thought of the other boy getting hurt is filling him out and he’s almost surprised at how much this affects him. “B-be careful.”

He can’t see much because there’s barely any light coming through the thick ice and a blue hue seems to have put itself over everything, but he still lifts his hand and touches Phil’s cold cheek. Once again the feeling of electricity is running through his fingertips and all he hears is Phil’s heavy breathing sounding in their icy dome.

Dan feels overwhelmed with everything that he wants to do and say and think, but in the end he decides to just stroke down Phil’s cheek once before slowly lowering his hand.

“I’ll s-see y-you in a m-minute,” he says through shaking teeth. “And t-then we can finally w-walk out of here.”

Phil nods, eyes fixated on Dan’s face, mouth hanging open slightly.

“Please be careful out there. Don’t get stung.”

Dan nods and finally gathers heat in his fingers. He turns towards the ice and puts his hands up against it. A small hole forms immediately and Dan lets the heat spread further through his body. He knows Phil is already working on his ice again, so he tries to hurry up, anxious to get out of the freezing cold and finally finish this once and for all.

It takes him a few minutes to melt his way out of the ball of ice completely, but once he’s finally out he’s quick to assess his surroundings. The hornets have gathered over their little dome, still buzzing angrily and it doesn’t take long for them to spot Dan. He turns around and runs away from the flag and Phil’s ice, trying to get Phil out of his blast radius. He hears the hornets behind him as he runs. He tries not to panic; he can basically feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins and that, together with the heat, means that he’s pretty sure that he won’t have a problem with creating a big enough blast.

As soon as the first hornet appears in his line of sight Dan stops dead in his tracks, breathes in as deep as he can, closes his eyes, and then just lets go. The heat pushes forcefully out of his body and even though he still has his eyes closed, he knows that everything within a thirty foot radius just got eliminated.

The buzzing is gone completely when he opens his eyes and turns around. The trees around him are no more and as he looks up, ash is raining down on him. Phil’s dome of ice is not exactly intact, but he thinks the ice might have held up. When Dan sees that he breathes out a sigh of relief.

He slowly walks towards the remaining ice and as he does so it gets broken down from the inside and Phil emerges, unharmed. He looks around, eyes wide open when he sees the damage that Dan has caused and then he’s running towards Dan and they’re hugging.

Ash is still raining down on them and Phil is way too cold, but Dan allows himself to bury his face in his shoulder for a few seconds.

When they let go of each other, Dan avoids looking at Phil at all cost. He’s honestly glad when he hears a metallic sound that distracts him from having to think about the turmoil of emotions going on inside of him.

They both look at the camouflage tower underneath the red flag just in time to see the gate swing open completely.

“Well, are you two done then?” Mrs Allen, who has appeared in the doorway, is yelling over to them. “Because then I think you should really come over here.”

Now Dan finally looks at Phil and they exchange a shy smile before starting to walk towards Mrs Allen to finally get out of this arena.

It turns out that there’s a tunnel under the arena that leads straight back to the hostel where they had been spending the night before the exam. It’s wide enough for a car and Mrs Allen tells them she’ll get them back there, before coming back and waiting for the remaining two teams together with Mr Green.

Dan and Phil sit in the backseat of the old SUV. The tunnel is only illuminated by dim and occasionally flickering lights every few feet and it’s only now that Dan really realises how tired and hungry he actually is.

“Are you alright?” Phil whispers and reaches out for Dan’s hand.

Once again the touch feels electrifying and Dan is quick to withdraw his hand.

“I just-,” he starts, but interrupts himself because he isn’t even sure what he wants to say.

His head is spinning and he feels weirdly disconnected from everything around him. He can’t think about him and Phil right now, he needs sleep. Actual sleep, without the ever-present danger of being mauled by some animal.

When they arrive at the hostel, Zoe is the first one to hug him. Dan notices a long scratch going over her neck, but he’s too exhausted to ask for the story behind it. He’s also pretty sure that she doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Louise?” He asks with a questioning look.

“She’s still in there with Jack,” Zoe says and bites her lower lip. “Tyler and PJ too.”

Dan nods and tries not to imagine horrible and potentially lethal scenarios that involve Jack and Louise.

“They have about twelve hours to complete the exam,” Joe states. “We’ll be stuck here until- something happened between you and Lester!”

“Joe, just don’t,” Dan says, trying not to display any emotions. “I’ll get some sleep.”

The drive back to school is mostly quiet. No one seems to want to talk about what happened in the arena. Dan is still sleepy and not interested in talking to anyone.

As soon as he closes his eyes, he feels like he’s back in the arena. He swears he can feel the humidity on his skin and hear the birds and other unidentifiable creepy jungle noises. He drifts off every few minutes, but wakes up with a gasp and heat pooling in his fingertips. Louise is sitting next to him and every time it happens, she puts her hand on his thigh and calmly tells him that he isn’t in the exam anymore.

Dan needs to not be around anyone for at least a few hours, so he locks himself into his room as soon as they’re back at school. The exhaustion still seems to sit deep in his bones, so he changes out of his clothes like he’s in some kind of trance and falls down face first on his bed.

He sleeps restlessly for a few hours and when he wakes up again it’s just past midnight. Dan stares at his ceiling in the dark and basically every shadow looks like it’s about to attack him.

“Stupid,” he mutters to himself, because rationally he knows that he isn’t going to get attacked in his own dorm room, but the thought is still there.

He tosses and turns in his bed for a while longer, but eventually gives up on falling asleep again. He gets up and changes into sweatpants that are a little less torn than the ones he wears to bed and a big hoodie. Then he puts on some sneakers and leaves his room, locking the door behind him.

Dan wanders the dimly lit hallways, hands deep in the pockets of his sweatpants. He wanders by the doors, occasionally glancing at the name plates. The thought that they all won’t be here for much longer is strange and seems to pull at something deep in his chest. He doesn’t really pay attention to where he’s going and is surprised when he ends up standing in front of a door with a little metal sign that reads ‘Lester, Philip Michael’.

He stares at the door for about a minute, contemplating his options, and is about to turn around again when a small voice in his head starts yelling at him to just go for it. Dan clears his throat before getting his hands out of his pockets. He takes one deep breath before finally knocking on Phil’s door.

It takes a few moments and then Dan can hear something clatter before footsteps approach the door.

When he sees Phil, Dan almost smiles at how adorable he looks, but he manages to control himself. Phil is wearing an oversized shirt and boxer shorts, his hair is sticking up in all directions and he blinks at Dan like he can’t quite comprehend that he’s here.

“Hey,” Phil eventually says in a deep and raspy voice that does funny things to Dan’s heart rate.

“Hey,” he manages to get out. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

“Yeah, but it’s okay,” Phil mumbles and steps aside. “Want to come in?”

Dan nods and takes a few steps into Phil’s room. He hears Phil close the door behind him and looks around. Phil’s room is a lot tidier than his own, and only illuminated by a small lamp on his bedside table.

“Everything alright?” Phil asks from behind him.

Dan shrugs and suddenly Phil’s fingers are touching his shoulder. He turns around to face the other boy.

“I just keep thinking about the arena,” he says quietly.

“Me too.”

“And about us.”

“Really?” Phil asks, voice sounding higher than usual.

“Yeah,” Dan says and can’t help the small smile that’s spreading on his face.

“And?”

“I don’t know,” Dan mumbles with another shrug and steps a little closer.

Phil licks his lips, still staring at Dan, obviously waiting for him to elaborate.

“I just-,” Dan starts and he can feel his face getting hot. “Kissing you wasn’t too bad, you know? And maybe repeating that under less deadly circumstances wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”

Phil still isn’t saying anything, so Dan lifts his hand and cups Phil’s cool cheek.

“Is this alright?” He asks.

Phil doesn’t answer, just leans forward and carefully presses his lips to Dan’s. The electric feeling is back immediately and Dan can hear Phil’s breath hitch in his throat. He smiles into the kiss and starts moving his lips against Phil’s.

As the kiss gets less shy, Phil’s fingers find their way to Dan’s hips, pulling him in closer and Dan is almost too eager to press his body against Phil’s.

Kissing Phil is unlike anything he’s ever felt before and eventually Dan has to pull back and gasp for air. Phil leans his cool forehead against Dan’s and they quietly smile at each other for a moment.

“Of course,” Dan starts. “Of course I still hate you, Lester.”

“I hate you more, Howell.”

Dan ends up staying in Phil’s dorm room all night. He isn’t quite ready to leave yet and plus, he’s worrying about having nightmares about the arena again. Both he and Phil went through so much so it’s nice to actually be together and not worry about being eaten alive.

And surprisingly, Dan realises that he and Phil actually have a lot in common. They both love the same bands and artists, and TV shows. They stay up and talk about their favourite things. Phil is actually a sweet guy and someone Dan could really see himself with. He just wishes he hadn’t cared so much about the rivalry between their families. He’s only ever heard bad things about the Lesters and it turns out none of them are true, at least where Phil is concerned. Dan yet has to meet the rest of the family and that is something he doesn’t even want to think about. He falls asleep in Phil’s arms around three am and sleeps through the rest of the night. The rest is a relief.

Dan and Phil both wake up late the next day. Dan says goodbye to Phil so that he can go back to his bedroom and get ready for the day. After a quick shower, he quite enjoys spending a lot of time on his hair; the week in the arena without a mirror or hair straighteners hadn’t really been the best of times.

Dan sighs as he walks out of his dorm room and makes his way towards the cafeteria. He smiles once he gets there and looks around. Already filled with students for lunch, of course. The younger ones had their last day of classes and it’s loud as ever, but for once Dan actually doesn’t mind the noise. It’s nice to see some familiar faces. Graduation is the very next day, so this is probably the last time their little group has lunch together here, which makes him quite sad. He starts looking around for Phil, but smiles once he sees Louise, Zoe, Joe and Jack all sitting together.

“Hey!” Dan quickly makes his way over to their table.

“Dan!” Louise smiles and stands up, immediately pulling Dan into a warm hug.

Dan laughs as he hugs her back, ignoring the pain in his arm.

“Wow… you seem way more cheery than you did on the bus,” Louise says with a raised eyebrow after she and Dan have sat back down.

“I can tell you why,” Joe says with a smirk.

“Shut up Joe,” Dan snaps before he rolls his eyes. “It’s nothing, okay?”

“Hey,” Dan looks up and smiles when he sees Phil. “Can I sit?”

“You two aren’t going to start bickering with each other again, are you? I’m too tired to put up with that,” Louise whines, making the others laugh.

“No Louise, I promise we won’t…” Dan chuckles. “Sit.” He tells Phil.

Phil smiles and then he sits down next to Dan at the table.

“Wow… This is surprising,” Louise says as she watches the two.

Dan shrugs. “Can you believe this is going to be the last time we’ll probably all be together?” He asks.

“I don’t even want to think about it,” Zoe pouts. “I’ll miss you guys!”

“Why do you think graduation is so soon after the exam?” Jack asks curiously.

“Probably because they want to get rid of us,” Dan says, and grins when the others laugh.

Dan can’t quite process that they’re actually going to graduate. He’s spent four years of his life at this school. And even though he’s probably going to be back eventually, since his family is running the place, it’s never going to be the same.

“This is it,” Dan whispers to himself as he stands in front of his mirror in his graduation gown.

He smiles before looking around with a sigh. Most of his belongings are already packed up in boxes and he’s about ready to head home. He already has some plans for what he wants to do, he just needs to talk to Phil first. Dan really wants to keep seeing Phil and even though their relationship is only just beginning, it somehow feels right.

Dan takes a deep breath before he finally walks out of the dorm room and makes his way towards the auditorium, where the graduation ceremony is going to take place. He hasn’t seen anyone yet today. The ceremony is being held early in the morning. Families are coming and the school is going to be packed with people. It’s definitely going to be emotional, saying goodbye to everyone.

“You ready for this?” Dan blinks a few times when he hears a voice, turns around, and smiles when he sees that it’s only Phil. “This is it… our last day of school.”

“Things are going to change, aren’t they?” Dan asks.

“Yeah… I think so. But I also think that they’ll be good changes,” Phil flashes a smile.

Dan chuckles. “There’s a lot we need to talk about,” he whispers.

“I know… but, let’s not worry about that, okay? Let’s just enjoy the graduation,” Phil says before he reaches over and grabs Dan’s hands and squeezes it gently.

Dan smiles and nods. “You’re right,” he says.

Phil lets go of Dan’s hand, and they head backstage for the graduation ceremony. A massive stage and lots of chairs for all the families, friends and teachers have been set up.

“You two together again, without arguing with each other?”

Dan chuckles at Louise. “Ha, ha. Very funny,” he says.

“Something must have happened in that arena,” Zoe speculates.

“Maybe,” Dan shrugs. “I’m just… happy to be out of that thing.”

“I think we all are,” Zoe smiles and nods. “I can’t believe we’re all graduating!”

“I can’t believe we actually made it through four years,” Phil laughs.

“Four years of hell,” Dan looks up at Phil and grins when he sees the look on his face.

“It’s starting!” Louise squeals, and all of the students line up in alphabetical order. Dan’s obviously not next to Phil which disappoints him because he’s nervous and could use Phil’s comfort.

“You’re next,” Jack whispers to Dan right after his own name has been called, making him jump. Jack laughs.

“Christ, Jack, don’t do that,” Dan hisses, before he takes a deep breath. “I’m already nervous enough…”

“Whatever you do, don’t trip. You don’t want to be that one person who trips at graduation,” Jack says with a wink and walks out on the stage.

“I’m not going to trip,” Dan rolls his eyes and sighs.

When Dan’s name is being called, he experiences a short moment of horror, but eventually takes a deep breath and walks up on the stage. He is so nervous that he isn’t paying attention to where he’s walking and actually nearly trips up the stairs. A few chuckles can be heard from the audience and Dan curses himself, the situation and mostly Jack who looks like he’s desperately trying not to laugh. He quickly walks across the stage, not bothering to look to his family who is sitting in the first row of the audience.

“Congratulations, Daniel,” his father, who is handing out the diplomas this year, says and hands him his.

“Thanks Dad,” Dan answers and takes the diploma before formally shaking his father’s hand.

When he turns to the audience, he sees his mother staring at him proudly. He can feel his cheeks getting hot and he finally walks off of the stage.

“Wow,” Dan whispers as he looks down at the diploma in his hand. He’s actually done it.

“I can’t believe you actually tripped,” Phil says from behind him and Dan rolls his eyes before turning around to face him.

“It was all Jack’s fault,” Dan says with a pout, accusingly staring at Jack who is standing near them. “He was getting inside my head!”

“To be fair, I didn’t think you would actually trip,” Jack grins.

“It’s a good thing I like you, Howard,” Dan warns playfully, causing Jack and Phil to laugh out loud.

A few hours later everything has started to get a little chaotic because everyone is running around, getting back stuff they’ve lent to each other over the years or just hanging out with their families. Dan and Phil are out in the yard where everything is a bit more quiet.

“What are we going to do about our families?” Phil whispers as he sits next to Dan on a bench.

“I’m not sure yet, but we’ll figure something out, okay?” Dan says softly as he looks over to Phil.

“I want to keep seeing you, after this,” Phil bites his lip nervously.

“And you will. I promise. I kind of asked PJ about your plans and I think you’ll find that we won’t be that far apart. I’ve really liked hanging out with you since we got out of the arena. Wow, who would’ve thought I’d ever say those words to Phil Lester,” Dan says.

Phil rolls his eyes.

“Very funny,” he grumbles, but can’t help laughing. He looks at Dan and his gaze falls on his arm where the scar of the bear attack is still bright pink and very visible.

“I’m really sorry about that,” he says as he nods towards Dan’s arm. Dan glances down at his arm for a second before he looks back up at Phil.

“It’s okay,” he says.

“No really. It was my fault that you got hurt in the first place. I should have been more careful and I wasn’t. You got hurt and it was my fault. I take full blame for it,” Phil says sternly.

“Aha!” Dan laughs. “So you do admit that it was your fault!”

“Dan!” Phil rolls his eyes and shoves him playfully. “I hate you.”

“Yeah, right,” Dan grins before he reaches up and presses his lips against Phil’s, kissing him softly. The kiss lasts for a few seconds before Dan hears a gasp from behind him. He quickly pulls away from the kiss and his eyes go wide when he sees his younger brother, Alex. “Shit. Alex-”

“You’re kissing the enemy!” Alex yells. “I’m telling mummy and papa!” He runs away before Dan gets the chance to stop him.

“We need to go,” Dan grabs Phil’s hand and they run inside the school. Alex makes his way to the cafeteria, where his and Dan’s parents are talking to some teachers and other parents, including Phil’s parents.

“Mummy!” Alex yells as he runs over to her.

“Alex!” Dan yells as he chases him. He stops once they get into the cafeteria and he sighs in defeat when he sees that Alex has already made it to their parents.

“What is it, Alex?” Mrs Howell asks softly as she looks down at Alex.

“Daniel was kissing that Lester boy!” Alex yells as he points over at Dan and Phil, who are still holding hands.

Mr and Mrs Howell look up and are both shock when they see who their son is with, but Dan knows they have to remain calm because everyone is watching them, and it wouldn’t look good if the school administration flipped out at their son on his graduation day.

“Daniel?”

“Mum, I can explain…” Dan walks over to their parents, bringing Phil with him.

“What is all of this?” Mr Howell asks, before he crosses his arm against his chest.

“I…” Dan nervously looks up at Phil and takes a deep breath when Phil gives him a nod. Dan sighs before he looks back over at his parents.

“I know this isn’t what you want to hear but… me and Phil…” Dan pauses and groans quietly. It is awkward having to say this in front of so many other people. “We’re dating now.”

“You’re what?” Mrs Howell asks as her eyes widen at Dan’s words.

“I don’t care about the stupid family rivalry anymore. I’ve gotten to know Phil a lot and… I want to be with him. You can’t keep us from being together,” Dan says, squeezing Phil’s hand.

Phil glances down at Dan for a quick second before he looks up at their parents again.

“Phil, is this true? How long has this been going on for?” Phil’s mother asks.

Phil takes a deep breath. “Only for a couple of days. We’ve been getting to know each other and it just sort of happened. I’ve always liked Dan. Please don’t take him away now that we’re together. I’ve had to keep my feelings bottled up for so long because of the family rivalry,” he says.

“Well,” Phil’s mother says with a sigh and gives Mr Lester a quick glance before looking back at Dan and Phil. “I don’t mind as long as you’re both happy.”

“Yeah. We need to put this whole thing aside and think about what makes our son happy,” Mr Lester says as he gives Phil a reassuring smile and Dan a nod of approval.

Dan gasps as he looks up at Phil, and then he looks over at his parents. “Mum? Dad?”

Mr Howell sighs. “This is not what I was hoping for, Daniel.”

“Dad,” Dan whispers as he can feel his eyes watering up. He simply doesn’t know what he’s going to do if his parents are to strongly disapprove. “This needs to end.” He pleads.

“They are right, you know? We need to care more about our son’s happiness rather than this rivalry that has been going on for way too long,” Mrs Howell whispers to her husband.

“Alright,” Mr Howell sighs in defeat. “I’m not happy about this, but I don’t think there’s much we can do.”

Dan smiles and immediately hugs Phil.

“Oh my God…” He laughs.

Phil smiles as he wraps his arm around Dan tightly.

“I can’t believe it,” he whispers.

“We’ll be talking about this later, Daniel!” Mr Howell warns. “Don’t think you’re off the hook.”

Dan pulls away from the hug and sighs.

“Way to kill the mood, dad.”

Phil chuckles and grabs Dan’s hand, and then they make their way back outside to the yard.

“That could have gone a lot worse,” Phil says.

“Thank God for your parents. Mine would have been against this immediately,” Dan rolls his eyes.

“It’s over with now, and that’s all that matters,” Phil sighs happily.

Dan turns so that he’s facing Phil again. “Who would have thought a Howell and Lester would end up together?” He asks, a smile forms on his face.

“Nobody,” Phil answers, causing them both to giggle. “Are you happy?” He bites his lip nervously.

“I…” Dan thinks to himself for a moment. “You know, what? I am. I am happy.”

“Good, knowing that you’re happy makes me happy,” Phil whispers.

Dan reaches up and pulls Phil in for a kiss, his eyes flutter shut, and he wraps his arms around Phil’s neck. The kiss is soft and sweet, just like Phil. Dan doesn’t want the kiss to end, but it does.

“Things are definitely going to change after this,” Dan whispers.

“Yeah…” Phil breathes. “But, I don’t care… as long as I’m with you.”

Two weeks ago, Dan would have never pictured himself ending up with Phil Lester, of all people. He only ever thought of Phil as the enemy, before. But yet, here he is. And he is happy about it.


End file.
